The future of Dacia: what next for the cheap car champions?
The rise of Dacia and its budget car range has had a huge impact on the car market but what comes next?
Dacia has a history dating back to the late 1960s in Eastern Bloc Romania but it’s the firm’s modern era, after its acquisition by Renault in 1999 that has really seen it make its mark on the global car building stage.
Dacia set out its budget car stall and quickly struck a chord with car buyers across Europe. Rival manufacturers followed suit with value-focused models of their own in the wake of Dacia’s success but increased pressure on the lower end of the market and the growing technical complexity of cars generally are challenges that Dacia needs to face down if its growth is to continue. Interesting times lie ahead.
As part of the celebrations marking the 1,000,000th car to be built at Dacia’s Tangier plant, we caught up with commercial director Francois Mariotte, who gave us an update on his plans for the brand.
"In some countries we are selling all the range with LPG. And with LPG it is a good way to address pollution because the NOx emission is almost zero. For a few hundred euros you can get this engine on all seven Dacia models. So this is our answer – it is available, affordable to buy and affordable to use.”
"For the time being it is too expensive for us. To keep such an affordable level of price we need to use already proven technologies. Electricity and hybrid engines are still not answering to this DNA of the brand. But one day, within a few years, we can think that electrification will happen.
"There will be a big growth of the market by different suppliers and then we will use this kind of technology for Dacia. But for the time being the most efficient way for us is LPG.”
Source: autoexpress.co.uk
Dacia set out its budget car stall and quickly struck a chord with car buyers across Europe. Rival manufacturers followed suit with value-focused models of their own in the wake of Dacia’s success but increased pressure on the lower end of the market and the growing technical complexity of cars generally are challenges that Dacia needs to face down if its growth is to continue. Interesting times lie ahead.
As part of the celebrations marking the 1,000,000th car to be built at Dacia’s Tangier plant, we caught up with commercial director Francois Mariotte, who gave us an update on his plans for the brand.
"In some countries we are selling all the range with LPG. And with LPG it is a good way to address pollution because the NOx emission is almost zero. For a few hundred euros you can get this engine on all seven Dacia models. So this is our answer – it is available, affordable to buy and affordable to use.”
"For the time being it is too expensive for us. To keep such an affordable level of price we need to use already proven technologies. Electricity and hybrid engines are still not answering to this DNA of the brand. But one day, within a few years, we can think that electrification will happen.
"There will be a big growth of the market by different suppliers and then we will use this kind of technology for Dacia. But for the time being the most efficient way for us is LPG.”
Source: autoexpress.co.uk
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