Renault and Volkswagen have reportedly ended talks on a possible collaboration on a low-cost electric car without a deal.
Reuters reported that Renault CEO Luca de Meo told the news agency that the plan for the two companies to jointly develop an affordable electric car – likely based on the Twingo – is now a “missed opportunity, but there may be others”.
The plan was to work together on a model priced low enough to compete with cheap BEV models from Chinese OEMs such as BYD. In China, BYD is selling electric cars under $10,000. European OEMs are fighting to get their models under 20,000 euros.
Analysts say it’s never easy to bring two major automotive corporations together to jointly develop an important model.
“The difficulties lie in the details and the question of who brings what to the party is never easy,” says Al Bedwell, analyst at GlobalData. “The theory behind joint development and cost sharing between OEMs in certain circumstances may seem quite convincing. The difficulties begin when you get into the specifics of which technology is used, which platform, the supply of key components, production sites and so on. There will be competing engineering divisions in separate companies that want a big slice of the action.
“Discussions – by their very nature – involve mutual exchange commitments from all parties, but sometimes this is difficult to achieve. The matrix of potential project liabilities can become too complex – negating the very savings everyone expected at the outset.
“It’s about meeting expectations and sometimes discussions can be much more complex to resolve in a way that works for both sides. But that doesn’t mean there isn’t an ideal place for OEMs to come together on shared model development and subsequent production, if the will is there.”
“Renault and VW end negotiations for joint ‘e-Twingo’ – report” was originally created and published by Automatic onlya brand owned by GlobalData.
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