Renault wants five hundred drop for European car industry

ISTANBUL, Turkey (Bloomberg) -- Renault needs the European car industry to decrease 5 percent this year over last year, Chief Operating Officer Carlos Tavares said.

The French carmaker, whose global deliveries last year fell 6.3 percent to 2.55 million cars and light cars, expects the European market to become "slightly better" in-the remaining three groups of the year than the first three months, when European market income fell 10 percent after a "very bad performance," Tavares said at a news conference here on Tuesday.

Renault was expecting a in Europe of a minimum of 3 percent this year as the car and light-truck market can develop 3 percent this year, with growth of up to 11 percent in India, it said Feb. 1-4.

Supported by the renewed Clio subcompact and budget Dacia Logan, the French automaker forecast that its international deliveries will rise this year, it said.

Electric cars

Renault doesn't exclude producing light commercial vehicles in Turkey, where its joint venture system Oyak-Renault Otomobil Fabrikalari AS, Turkey's greatest manufacturer of cars, is making the Fluence and Clio, he explained.

The carmaker needs to double its product sales of electric vehicles, like the Zoe and Fluence among its four electric designs, internationally this season from 18,000 items offered in 2012, Tavares said.

From start through April, Renault has offered a combined 24,688 models of its four EV models, the company told Automotive News Europe in a e-mail.

The Turkish plant could make a record most of 340,000 cars this season, 20,000 short of its capacity, he explained.

Renault's plants in Romania and Morocco are becoming "cost-competitive" in terms of production costs and "Turkey may not be a standard in terms of cost anymore," he explained.

Tofas Turk Otomobil Fabrikasi AS, a partnership between Fiat S.p.A. and Koc Keeping AS, along with Toyota Motor Corp., Toyota Motor Company. and Hyundai Motor Company. are among producers of trucks, vans, cars and buses that promote local and imported models in Turkey.

Turkish car and van sales are required to increase about 3% to 780,000 this season, Ibrahim Aybar, chief executive of Renault Mais Motorlu Araclar Imal & Satis AS, the sales joint venture between Oyak and Renault Group, said on Jan. 8.

12.12.2014
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