Renault is planning a product offensive in India over the next 18 months which will include a foray into the electric arena. The new launches will include two B and C segment SUVs as well as an all-new Triber and Kiger. An EV is also on the cards and indications are that it will possibly debut towards the second half of 2026. “Renault really wants to step up the pace of activity in India and make up for lost time,” said a top industry official. The capacity at the Chennai plant, which is home to the Renault-Nissan alliance, is being used only to the tune of 45-50% and the new products are intended to boost this to 70%. This will ensure greater viability of operations unlike today where barely half the facility is used. “From Renault’s point of view, it is also important to send out the right signal of its India intent especially at a time when its global ally, Nissan, has been struggling and is now looking at a merger with Honda,” added the official.
Tough rivals
Since the time in early 2023, when massive investments were announced for India, nothing much has followed in terms of a product blitzkrieg which would have reflected a greater sense of aggression. On the contrary, Tata Motors and Mahindra & Mahindra have emerged the two new tough rivals to reckon with in a landscape where Maruti Suzuki, Hyundai and Kia are the lead players along with Toyota and JSW MG Motor.
Experts also believe that Renault needs to look beyond electric at hybrids too as part of its clean air drive. It has already made public its plans to explore options like compressed natural gas and a foray into hybrids will, likewise, be an ideal interim solution before electric completely dominates the script.
Even worldwide, there is a growing realisation that carmakers should not be putting all their eggs in one basket and are better off with a host of other solutions besides electric. The growing crisis in Germany where mass layoffs and plant closures are the order of the day is a grim reminder that governments across the world will need to be open to the use of other clean fuels and not focus on electric alone.
The growing might of the Chinese in this sphere is also another reason to go down this path of alternatives since there is no way other countries can take them on in costs of EVs. “India, similarly, has to be flexible with its clean fuels basket and companies like Renault will need to be in sync with this approach too,” said the industry official.
Customer connect
It is pretty much a make-or-break situation for the company now which needs to pull out all the stops to ensure that its next round of launches hits the bull’s-eye in terms of customer connect and building volumes. Both Triber and Kiger are familiar brands which have had their heady moments in the market before losing momentum.
The challenge now is to recreate the magic in a far more competitive setting where young customers want a host of features in their cars at affordable prices. The top management at Renault has already gone on record to say that “no time is late and it is only a matter of how well you bring your products into the market and how well you take care of your customer”. The company will also be banking on its mantra of pricing value rather than enter the zone of cheap costs. The idea is to deliver what customers want here they can pick and choose while paying the value for a car.
“Since we were only charging value, profitability became a challenge but we are trying to optimise our resources internally…whether it is cost optimisation in the manufacturing plant, supplier base or the way we use the supply chain management. That is how/where we need to optimise and we are doing it extensively,” a top company official had told this writer in an earlier interaction. Eventually, it is all about ensuring top quality where Renault has had its focus riveted on the evolution process over the last few years. This is part of the effort to have a strong foundation in place for the future. Models like Kwid, Triber and Kiger have gone through this cycle of constantly fixing glitches so that customers remain satisfied.
Value proposition
As the official added, every effort has been made to ensure that customers have little or nothing to complain about. What they want by the end of the day is peace of mind when buying a car and that is what “our goal is in terms of offering value”.
According to him, it is a tough exercise which begins at the time of production when the product is evolving and there are “engineering things happening”. This is also the period when feedback is constantly taken to “reinvest back” into the engineering and testing methodology. Till every parameter of quality is addressed, the car will not get the go-ahead to make its way into showrooms.
To be able to do this, it is important to understand the product and how it is working…what is the technology and what creates the problem. The Renault official reiterated that no car is taken out of the plant without knowing the root cause. This is to ensure that any quality-related problem does not keep resurfacing.
“If you are not able to control your quality problems, you can never produce a quality car,” he said. This is the approach that the French carmaker has been taking in India where the underlying message from the top management is loud and clear: ‘We do not care if you have solved the problem but if you do not know the root cause, the problem is still there and can come up anytime.’
