Now that’s a nice sale: Renault sold 15,600 EVs that don’t even exist yet. In one fell swoop, Renault most likely overdelivered its near term business plan for electric vehicles in Europe. According to Reuters, Renault scooped up most of the 25,000 electric car contract awarded by the French government.
According to the report, Renault will supply 10,000 electric vehicles to France’s postal service La Poste and 5,600 more to other governmental entities. A Renault spokeswoman would not confirm and said that the matter should be official by mid-October. However, it’s time to start up that Fluence Z.E. production. Sold!
Another 3,900 electric vehicles will be ordered from PSA Peugeot Citroen at a later stage. Let’s see: There still are 5,500 EVs unawarded. Quick, someone call Paris!
As much as we joke about “Government Motors”, Renault was even more of French government motors than GM ever was. Wouldn’t GM wish U.S. government would order 10,000 volts, that’ll be a large chunk of developement budget paid right there! Might even be able to sell Volt to consumer for a much more reasonable price. Unfortunately, no such luck. And don’t expect such order from U.S. Postal Service either, it’s near bankruptcy as it is!
The Nissan-NEC factory in Japan that makes the batteries is capped at 60k per year.. and they have to supply Leafs in Japan, US and Europe also.. so good luck with that. Once the Smyrna, TN factory cranks up then the supply problem will ease a bit, I think they will be able to make about 250k batteries and 200k Leafs. There is a third factory in the works, 50k a year, in England I think.
France’s gas prices are notoriously high so It’s a smart move by their government. They support local buisness, save money on gas expenses and because they need to buy vehicles anyway it’s a “nice” way to get tax payers to help Renault with development costs. Win, Win if you ask me.
France does have some of the cheapest electricity prices in Europe thanks in part to its abundance of Nuclear plants. Certain French cities such as La Rochelle have invested heavily in EV infrastructure. There probably is a market for a car like this.
They also offer lots and lots of incentives to buy an electric car, unless the EU nixed that.
French government has a long tradition in supporting everything from farming to industry. Why should they act different in that case? Won’t ruin France, won’t achieve anything, as usual. Except that some other idiots in the EU cry for similar government programs in their respective country (looking at Germany).
France’s gas prices are in line with the European average, or just slightly higher. The other part of the equation is where the difference lies: France has the cheapest electricity in Europe, is not constrained in capacity (lots of export), and has no intention of abandoning the main reason for these facts, nuclear power.
The problem I see in this “investment” by the state is that France will lose production of most conventional cars, to be replaced by electric cars (as far as my crystal ball sees). This looks more like speculation than wise investment…