When you attend a press conference automakers will usually harp on about their expansion plans and their projected level of growth. You’ll see countless charts relating to market share, year-to-date gains and percentage of each segment held. With that in mind it was quite refreshing to note that one of the first comments at the recent Renaulution press conference was that the French brand plans to move from volume to value… interesting, but what does it mean?

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New leadership, new focus

Renaulution is the name given to Renault’s plans for the strategic future of the brand. This plan is being led by industry expert Luca de Meo. The Italian is an old hand, having spent time at Toyota, had stints running Lancia and Alfa Romeo and leading Fiat before moving to the Volkswagen Group. In the German powerhouse he was a senior director at Audi and, most recently, headed Spanish subsidiary Seat. He left Seat in good health with insiders saying he injected new enthusiasm into the brand.

Read our driving review of the Renault Megane RS Cup at this link.

De Meo takes charge at one of the most tumultuous periods of Renault’s 120+ year history. Previous boss Carlos Ghosn is the subject of a high-profile escape from Japanese custody (which will no doubt be the subject of a movie in the not too distant future) that left relations with Japanese alliance partner, Nissan, in tatters. 

With a heavy burden to carry De Meo has instituted Renaulution that moves the company away from being a volume player into a value player. The plan, over the medium term, aims to make Renault more profitable by focussing on its key segments and by creating products and staying within markets that make sense from a profitability point of view. Some of the aspects of the Renaulution involved cutting new-car development process time by 25 per cent, to 150 weeks, dropping from eight engine groups to four, and a reduction on manufacturing capacity from four to 3,1 million units. You can learn more in the video at the bottom of this post.

Local news

This news comes amid the recent announcement that Renault in France has relinquished all of its shares to South African company Motus. Motus also owns and is the sole importer of Hyundai, Kia and Mitsubishi into South Africa. As 100 per cent owners of the brand in the local context Renault SA will have to align itself with the plan that is set out by the French HQ. 

In the short term we can expect a new small crossover to take the place of the Sandero Stepway. The Kiger will be introduced locally in September of this year. Two powertrain options will be available, naturally aspirated and turbocharged options, both of which can be mated with manual or automatic transmissions. The new Clio will follow in the early part of 2022 and in 2023 we can expect the swoopy backed Arkana crossover. 

New look

A new logo has been adopted by Renault to herald its new future. The black and white logo, without any text. The press material reads: “This logo embodies the “Nouvelle vague” the idea to offer a new possibility by bringing something new to the ecosystem, closer to the spirit of the times and resolutely modern.”

While Renault has created a new high performance sub-brand called Alpine (and renamed its Formula One team to match) the fit-for-market approach that De Meo expounds means that we will not be privy to models such as the lightweight A110S or upcoming Alpine models – bummer. 

Learn more about the Renaulution here: