Part of the Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi Alliance, Dacia is known for offering some of the least expensive cars available in the European and UK markets. The Dacia Sanderro is the cheapest car you can buy in the UK and the Dacia Duster is the cheapest SUV.
That is not going to change in the electric car era, according to Jean Christophe Kugler, Dacia’s European chairman. He told Express over a year ago that any EV from his company will remain true to the basic principles of the Dacia brand. “We will remain shockingly affordable. We won’t change our brand territory,” he said.
“We will benefit from the Alliance’s strength and the proven technology so we can fit that to a Dacia. We have all the [electric] technology ready and on the shelf. Being part of the bigger Alliance means when we need a technology, we have it. We don’t have to negotiate.”
The off the shelf technology Kugler is referring to is probably what is currently used to produce the Renault Zoe, which is a pretty affordable EV in its own right. The Zoe has enjoyed good sales success for Renault and has been updated for the 2019 market.
How soon will these “shockingly affordable” electric cars arrive? “We look at when it will be affordable. We stick to our business model and when it is ready and when there is a request we will plug it,” Kugler says.
Express speculates 2020 is probably the earliest that EVs from Dacia can be expected. “To remain affordable in their creation, the technology will unlikely be cutting edge and the range will probably sit around the 100 mile mark,” it says. But a low priced urban runabout may be just what many city dwellers in Europe and the UK want. That is the role that Great Wall expects is ORA R1 to play in the Chinese market.
The kicker in all this is how the arrest of Carlos Ghosn will affect the Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi alliance. That is a wild card that could alter many of the carefully thought out plans Dacia and other members of the alliance have made.
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