Le Vot said Dacia’s C-segment push does “not mean that we’re not looking at a smaller thing”, and suggested that the firm has in the past not offered anything below the Sandero because “the equation of a classic A-segment [car] doesn’t really fly with ICE solutions”, given their thin profit margins.
The firm does already sell an electric microcar in Europe, the Spring, and Le Vot said that car is “here to stay” for the foreseeable future.
But the £15k Spring is built in China, which significantly dents its profitability in Europe, and moving production here would be a “complicated thing to do” because of the huge work needed to rebuild the supply chain and logistics network.
Engineering and producing a Spring successor in Europe would enhance its profitability and better incorporate the demands of European buyers from the early stages, and Le Vot is confident that affordability can be factored in right from the conception stage.
For example, the low range requirements of a small commuter car mean that it could theoretically be fitted with a battery half the size of today’s EV city cars. The average commuter drives 37km (23 miles) per day, said Le Vot, which means “you can have half the battery input, and it will still work”.
One possibility, acknowledged Le Vot, is using the Ampr Small platform that underpins the Renault Twingo as the basis for a Dacia alternative.
He refers to Renault’s modular architectures as the ‘techno bricks’ on which Dacia can base all its models – a crucial component of Dacia’s value-focused business model – and did not write off the possibility of using any of them for upcoming cars.
Le Vot even went so far as to say that Dacia is evaluating the possibility of creating its own version of the tiny two-seat Duo from Renault’s new mobility brand Mobilize.
“We are all together,” he said. “There is nothing that we don’t share.”
Autocar has previously reported that Dacia has considered the viability of a microcar to rival the Citroën Ami, and the Duo could provide a quick and cost-effective means of bringing that to reality.
