India: Renault's global manufacturing hub for Kwid

After Renault's successful launch of its competitively-priced EV, Kwid, in India last year, the company announced that its Chennai plant will build the hatchback for worldwide distribution. Previously, the Renault-Nissan Alliance strategy had been based on local manufacturing for local markets. Renault's CEO remains optimistic about 2016, despite China's economic slowdown, and confirmed the alliance is on track to deliver mass-market, mass-produced EVs by 2020. He said that the biggest hurdle to autonomous vehicles is road safety and necessary regulation, not the technology.

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After having taken a consistent stand on how local manufacturing for local markets had to be the only strategy for the Renault-Nissan Alliance, the Franco-Japanese tie-up seems to have backtracked on its plans. While speaking at the on-going World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Renault-Nissan CEO Carlos Ghosn announced that India will serve as a hub to supply the Kwid hatchback worldwide.

This statement follows the hugely successful launch of the Renault Kwid, launched in India last year at highly very competitive market price, starting at Rs 2,60,000. The Alliance’s local manufacturing stance seems to have changed, thanks to the positive reaction to the Kwid. Its production, previously done elsewhere, is now based firmly in a Chennai plant which now enjoys 97 percent localisation.

Ahead of the Auto Expo, news of automatic variants of the Kwid and Duster have been doing the rounds. Renault-Nissan is also working on several new models for the Indian market, given that the car penetration is at 20 cars per 1,000 people in India and growth is expected.

The Kwid follows Renault’s CMF-A platform, part of Renault-Nissan’s larger Common Modular Family strategy. There is a high likelihood of similar compact vehicles emerging in the near future for both the Alliance brands.

Although the manufacturing slowdown in China has adversely affected the Alliance, Ghosn remained optimistic about 2016. He puts India alongside China and the US as a key market in the worldwide motoring industry, and stated at the World Economic Forum event that Renault-Nissan will remain true to its promise of mass-market, mass-produced electric vehicles by 2020.

He also believes that the biggest hurdle with self-driving cars is not technology, but road safety and the necessary rules required to support it.