Renault expects the provision of semiconductors to stay troublesome till at the very least mid-2022, complicating the automaker’s turnaround that features overhauling its manufacturing facility base.
Renault is prioritizing output of higher-margin automobiles and industrial autos as demand stays sturdy, in accordance with CEO Luca de Meo.
“Renault has been pressured in some instances to ship somebody to Asia to get the chips,” de Meo stated in an interview Tuesday on the Flins plant, the place auto meeting is ready to halt in a few years after virtually seven a long time. “It’s a multitude.”
The manufacturing facility west of Paris, which makes the Zoe electrical hatchback and the Nissan Micra, will rework by 2024 to recycle and retrofit automobiles and batteries.
The conversion of Flins is a key a part of a broader overhaul of Renault that features job and value cuts and a reducing of worldwide manufacturing capability.
Whereas manufacturing of the Zoe will proceed till then, Renault will consolidate EV output in France at a plant in Douai, the place the electrical Megane shall be made. Renault can also be making its no-frills Dacia Spring mannequin in China.
The corporate has made “stable progress on its turnaround plan,” Citi analysts wrote in a report revealed Tuesday. Renault has decreased leverage, and accelerated price reductions and restoration of revenue margins, they stated.
De Meo reiterated Renault’s projection that the corporate would make round 500,000 fewer autos this 12 months — that’s equal to almost a fifth of final 12 months’s output — as a consequence of an absence of parts.