T-ASK

Group Renault wants to leverage its asset such as EVs

On May 29^th, 2020, Group Renault announced its transformation plan, which aims to achieve savings of more than 2 billion Euros over three years and lay the foundation for a new competitiveness. In the statements, the French automotive giant mentioned “By capitalizing on our many assets such as the electric vehicle, by capitalizing on the resources and technologies of Group Renault and the Alliance, and by reducing the complexity of development and production of our vehicles, we want to generate economies of scale to restore our overall profitability and ensure our development in France and internationally.” Therefore, the company acknowledges that electric vehicles are its main assets and will be the important key success factor in the next 5 to 10 years.

Who is Renault?

Group Renault was founded in 1898. According the company’s data, it is selling nearly 3.8 million vehicles in 134 countries in 2019, with 40 manufacturing sites, 12,800 points of sales and after-sales and employing more than 180,000 people all over the world.

However, the company has faced many difficulties including not only the spread of the pandemic but also the management issue after former chairman and CEO, Carlos Ghosn, were arrested in November 2018 in Japan.

What is attractiveness of Electric Vehicle?

According to the survey of our group companies, some consumers in Japan told us that they felt the attractiveness of Electric Vehicles (EVs) was update of their software. Therefore, we could say that EVs are next smartphones in our society.

Solid State Batteries

One of the big technological challenges of electric vehicles is the cost of batteries, which accounts for about one third of total cost. The problem of batteries is not only their cost but also several technological issues such as short lifetime, being flammable and explosive. Solid state batteries are one of possible solutions and could transform industries drastically. However, they are not ready for mass production and still the stage for Research and Development. In order to develop these important and innovative products, a new EU project called ASTRABAT has been created. According to its Homepage, ASTRABAT is a three and a half years European project launched in January 2020. It aims to develop optimal Lithium-ion battery solutions for the increasing demands of the electric vehicle market in particular. The goal is to fulfil Europe’s need for a safe, high-energy, sustainable and marketable battery for green mobility that could be manufactured in Europe on a massive scale.