[Herald Interview] Renault Korea prepares for major changes from 2024
[Herald Interview]
Renault Korea prepares for major changes from 2024 By
Kan Heyong-woo, Byun Hye-jin, The Korea Herald - Renault Korea Motors is
pinning high hopes for next year to be the beginning of a complete turnaround
after years of struggle, as the French automaker has big plans for 2024 and
beyond, its CEO says. “Next
year, we will have two big events. One related to the brand uplift and one
related to the launch of the Aurora 1,” said Renault Korea Motors CEO Stephane
Deblaise in an interview with The Korea Herald at the automaker’s office in
Seoul on Dec. 5. The
Aurora 1, codenamed AR1, refers to the automaker’s project for developing and
launching a new hybrid vehicle, which runs on an electric motor along with a
gasoline engine. The Aurora project is Renault Korea’s roadmap to roll out
hybrid vehicles from next year and battery-electric vehicles in 2026. “With
the Aurora project, we really put a French design, which will be done by Gilles
Vidal, the head of Renault brand design,” said Deblaise. “We
put all our brand DNA and put together a car, which is much bigger than (it
was) in the past. For instance, the knee room, which means the distance between
your knee and the front row. In Korea, bigger is better as of today. Our
intention is to really put the best of Renault and the needs of the Korean
customer together in our new launches in the future.” The
CEO, who took the leading position at Renault Korea in March 2022, explained
that the current plan is in two steps. The first phase is the brand uplift and
launch of the Aurora projects between 2024 and 2026, and the second is to
introduce new Renault Group brands and release more battery electric vehicles
in the Korean market between 2027 and 2029. As
for the consensus among major global automakers to move toward all-electric
vehicles soon, the CEO pointed out that hybrids will still be a huge part of
the auto market even with the EV-shifting efforts in full steam. "The
common forecast of everybody is that 30 percent of the market in 2030 should be
BEVs, meaning that 70 percent is more or less hybrid and maybe four by four,”
he said. Asked
about specific plans for the brand uplift, Deblaise refrained from disclosing
too much information. However, he underlined that now is the time to move
forward and shake things up completely. “Renault
Samsung had a good image thanks to Samsung. This is why it was very good to
capitalize on this Samsung heritage,” he said. “We
had good cars like the SM5, QM6 and QM3. Some of them were successful, but
globally as time passed the company image was decreasing, seen as an
old-fashioned brand more and more.” The
CEO pointed out that the recent cooperation announcement with Swedish BEV maker
Polestar to produce the Polestar 4 at Renault Korea’s Busan plant from 2025
shows how the Korean office of the French brand can offer a lot more than what
other importers can do here. “Other
brands are importing, but we are the only one to have a plant here,” he said. “We
are adding value to this country. For instance, nobody else could produce
Polestar. We are creating something that nobody else can do.” Deblaise
also noted that having Zhejiang Geely Holding Group as a shareholder is a very
good opportunity, because it’s open to a lot of brands such as Geely, Polestar,
Volvo, Zeekr, Geometry, Lotus and Lynk & Co., in which the China-based
multinational automotive company owns a majority stake. “Some
of these brands are very, very good. These brands have not so many plants
outside of China,” he said. “(Our
cooperation with Polestar) is showing that what we call a horizontal
partnership can be very good, meaning you don’t need to have all your
competencies all at home to do the job.” According
to the CEO, the Busan plant’s production capacity is likely to stay at the
current level of 300,000 units per year, but its portfolio will have more
variety, with "several" brands using the site to produce vehicles in
the future. Source:
https://www.koreaherald.com/view.php?ud=20231210000131
2023.12.13
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