Peugeot is deepening job cuts at its French factories, with another 1,500 positions set to be made redundant as part of a massive cost-cutting effort. Meanwhile, rival automaker Renault is expanding its operations in Morocco as its Dacia brand continues to steamroll through the European market.
Despite being attacked in some circles as symbols of American decadance, the compact crossover is rapidly gaining in popularity. French business outlet La Tribune reports that sales of small crossovers are up 25 percent this year, with crossovers of all sizes now accounting for 10 percent of the car market.
TTAC readers know that this site has an unhealthy fascination with low-cost cars. It’s not entirely unjustified, what with the segment booming in recession-plagued Europe and the fact that low-cost vehicles are cannibalizing the sales of larger, more conventional vehicles.
Renault’s plans for a plant in Algeria have stalled, amid the French auto maker’s desire for an agreement barring auto makers from setting up shop in the country for 5 years after the plant comes online – and Volkswagen is apparently what’s keeping Renault up at night.
Renault is gearing up to produce a range of cars positioned below Dacia, including a competitor for the Tata Nano.
Steel wheels? Crank rear windows? Those features would be poison on a car sold in North America, but Dacia’s UK division isn’t having any trouble selling base model Dusters.
“When you do everything right but too late, you do it all wrong. Before reaching a dead end, PSA decided to forge a partnership with a manufacturer [General Motors] that I don’t consider to be among the industry’s leaders of the pack. Overall, I think there is a lack of ambition [when it comes to product] from the French manufacturers.”
Great news everyone! The Dacia Sandero will apparently cost £5,995, or about $9,600 in its cheapest trim level, when it goes on sale in the UK tomorrow.
The Paris Auto Show is about to kick off tomorrow, and some of the product set to debut has me cursing myself for not maxing out my Visa on a flight and a room at the lovely hotel that’s walking distance from the Porte de Versailles, where the pretty girl with crooked teeth sits patiently at the front desk. And how could I forget the wizened gran-mere hovering over the table at breakfast, replenishing your plate with cheeses and baked goods that one could never hope to find at Publix?
Alas, I am not part of the A-List club that gets driven from the Georges V to the Expo Hall in an S-Class, and so rather than sucking down a Gauloises or getting a glimpse of Carla Bruni (I was blessed with such a privilege in 2010) I’m stuck in North America, having to use my brain rather than just repeating back what my PR minders told me over a glass of Cotes-de-Rhone.
The Dacia Sandero, so beloved by James May and other fans of cars with roll-up windows, is getting a face lift ahead of its UK debut, as Renault’s low-cost brand sets its sight on even greater dominance of the European car market.
While Nissan CEO Carlos Ghosn is “preparing for many mediocre years” of European sales, there may be a silver lining for the company.
The big winner for Renault in the first half of 2012 was their low-cost Dacia brand, while the losers were…everyone else.
The establishment of a new manufacturing base in North Africa has fascinated me for the past couple months – though few others seem to really care. The leader in this movement has been Renault, which is setting up plants in Morocco and Algeria to build their popular, low-cost Dacia vehicles in factories where employees earn a fraction of what a French assembly line worker would make.
PSA doesn’t have a low-cost brand of it’s own, so jobs haven’t gone across the Strait of Gibraltar – yet. But the closing of the Aulnay plant, where a massive contingent of North African immigrants (now French citizens) work, is a compelling snapshot of the socioeconomic and racial dynamics of France that happens to intersect with the auto industry.
My last post on TTAC was on the Renault Logan, but the vehicle pictured above, also a Romanian derived Dacia, is one that changed Renault’s fortunes in India overnight. After the Logan was licensed to Mahindra, Renault re-started its India innings with the launch of the Fluence and Koleos in 2011. The French automaker launched a re-badged Nissan Micra (called the Pulse) earlier this year. Renault’s monthly sales after the launch of these three cars revolved around 400 odd units, which equates to an yearly figure of around 5000 units. This gives them a 0.24% market share in India and places them in 13th position.
African car plants are nothing new, but vehicle exports from the continent are the exception, rather than the rule. Renault, which already has a presence in Morocco, is looking to expand into Algeria.
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