Denis le Vot – CEO Dacia and Lada, together with Gilles Le Borgne – executive vice president of engineering Renault Group, Laurens van den Acker – executive vice president of design Renault Group, and a plethora of officials of the French group discussed with a small group of Romanian journalists about the future of the Dacia brand and the Mioveni plant.
“I came to Romania with Gilles Le Borgne, Laurens van den Acker and other colleagues with the future Duster in their luggage. We can say that we transferred Duster 3 to this country. Everything that will follow – design, engineering, development, procurement, etc. – will be made in Romania. From this moment the project is Romanian. You will not see him immediately, but he exists “, said the head of Dacia worldwide.
Denis le Vot’s statement was also supported by the head of the group’s engineering division, Gilles Le Borgne, who explained that “we talked to the teams from Romania, Russia, Morocco and South America because we are talking about a huge project. It is about six cars (nn – zonal derivatives of Duster) and four industrializations (nn – the car will be produced in four factories), and the development is done here, at Renault Technologie Roumanie (RTR). At the moment, the project employs about 4,000 people from engineering and another 2,700 employees from Renault and Dacia. The first product of this project is the future Dacia Duster which will also be marketed under the Renault brand in certain areas ”.
Renault officials present in Bucharest denied the idea that Duster will be nothing but Bigster’s younger brother. At least not in terms of road behavior because the design is expected to have strong influences.
“Jogger has nothing to do with Sandero in terms of size. But they have the same platform. And we will continue like this. Duster will be a crossover that will also have a 4 × 4 version. It will be the rough and tough car of the range, so to speak. The Bigster will be longer (4.6 meters) and will tend towards the SUV area, meaning that, in the end, this car will be very good for long journeys as well. Because that’s what people in the C (compact) segment are looking for. They are not looking for an off-road car, but a spacious one with a high, comfortable position. So the role of each car in the Dacia range will be very different “, Denis le Vot detailed.
The CEO of Dacia also mentioned that the brand can be “cool” in terms of design without high costs. Compare the new Jogger with Lodgy. To get into the C segment and to be sure that, for example, German customers will buy Bigster, we have to be “cool”. I can tell you, although I can’t show you, that designers do a wonderful job with future models ”.
The plant that will produce Duster, still under discussion
Although the Dacia Duster 3 project was granted by the Renault group leaders to the Romanian team, the plant in which it will be produced is not yet established. As Duster 2 facelift is already manufactured in Mioveni, the simple logic says that Duster 3 will also be assembled here, but it should not be taken into account that, also in that period, 2024 – 2025 – 2026, the Bigster model will also go into production. With Logan, Sandero Stepway and Jogger in their portfolio, it is hard to believe that both Duster 3 and Bigster will be able to be industrialized in Mioveni. In addition, without Lodgy and Dokker, there is still a lot of room for maneuver at the Moroccan plant.
In this context, Denis le Vot limited himself to stating that he does not want to talk now about the manufacturing site of the future Duster for the time being. “I can only say this: there are no problems in terms of capacity. Understand that so far we have had two cars – Sandero and Duster (nn – the official Dacia does not seem to take into account Logan) -, this fall we have three or four, depending on how you count because Spring is produced in China. The other is the new Jogger. With them we managed to have a market share that occupies all the capacity of the plants. Maybe not at the moment because the market is down because of the causes you know (pandemic, semiconductor crisis, etc.), but it normally occupies it. When Bigster comes, we’ll need more assembly space. I can’t say yet where Duster 3 will be assembled, but don’t be afraid, the entire production capacity of the plant in Romania will be used. There is no doubt about it “, explained the CEO of Dcaia and Lada within the Renault group.
Read also:
– Luca de Meo: Renault is like a glorious football team that lost direction for a few seasons, but kept its winning attitude
– Dacia Jogger, the future model of the brand, will have a minimum price of about 15,000 euros
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