This also emerged from an interview with Xavier Martinet, senior vice president for marketing, operation and sales of Dacia brands, with whom we spoke at his nvtv in Prague.
Xavier Martinet, Senior Vice President Brands for Marketing, Operations and Sales Brands Dacia
Since 2004, Dacia has sold a total of 8 million cars, of which 142 thousand in the Czech Republic. How is the future signs?
I have many questions about the automotive industry as such, to which we do not know the answer. But we know what we want to do with Daci. We have been a firm part of the Renault concern for over 20 years and we will continue this good partnership. However, in the frame of the group, we have to separate the individual characters from each other.
We want the prices to mean an optimal product at an optimal price. We will be one of the last manufacturers to supply internal combustion engines even after 2030. Until they try it. But of course we don’t want to offer non-ecological drives, that’s why the importance of hybrids will increase in the future. We started with the Jogger, and the hybrid will have both generations of Duster. I don’t go dark with plug-in hybrids. The range of electric drives is also expanding.
What is the future of LPG (propane-butane)?
LPG is a sure way to buy ecological and economical engines. Uric gas will remain one of the drive variants in the future. We’ll charge him while we can. It will also be in the new Duster. They say that an electric car has zero emissions. Yes, but on the intake. If we consider the whole life cycle, it is different. I’m not sure if the electricity comes from coal or from the core. That is why we consider LPG to be ecological.
After 2035, won’t you have to leave the European markets and go to Africa or South America with this strategy?
When it comes down to it, we will have to focus on electric cars. And so we’ll do it. Here we take Spring, which proves that the Dacia electric car should be cheaper than the competition.
One of the reasons why Dacia is cheaper than other brands is the limited range of electronic assistants. Although the car has a safe construction, it does not have a long list of the most modern electronic assistants. But on the other hand, it took away points in safety tests. Will you continue with this strategy?
Let’s not look at the stars, that’s not the point. European legislation is becoming very corrupt in the field of ecology, we have no other choice there. In the assistants, yes. The main question is how the client sees it. Everyone says they want the most ecological and safe car, but not everyone wants to pay for it. I am not sure which client needs all electronic assistants.
Spring received one star in the Euro NCAP test. Is it dangerous? No. I take the homologated prescription as the answer. It has 6 airbags, standard brake assistants, which we consider to be due. But I don’t have the most crooked assistants. Dacia is one of the few brands that has the courage to make such a decision. According to the data we have, a Spring model will travel an average of 21 kilometers per day at an average speed of 26 km/h. We could give it a heavy battery, lots of ADAS systems. Spring will then be 10 thousand euros more expensive. But under those 21 kilometers a day, the speed is 26 km/h.
How will it be with diesel engines?
There will be no diesel in the new Duster, so buy it while you can. And as for the Bigster, he can’t give a concrete answer to that, I can only say that it will be based on the same chassis platform, but I will tell him that the Bigster will get both a hybrid engine and an LPG drive.
Many German car companies are entering Europe with an aggressive pricing policy. Do you see them as competition?
If we’re talking about the C segment, everyone should be on the lookout, not just Dacia. But the price is not everything. Those who only go for the price will simply choose the cheapest one and leave you with us. But we have been working on a cohesive image, characters and design for several years. A few years ago, for most of our clients, the main reason for buying was price. But we have changed the design and mainly our entire visual identity, including the logo on all models, and the result is that the price is still very high for our customers, but the first thing is that they like Dacia.
