Renault to import more cars to the PRC?
In the past 18 months China Car Times has seen more and more Renault cars being driven around this fair country, most of them are Meganes and Scenics, we seldom see the Laguna, but we have seen them around.
Renault havnt made a vehicle in China since they had a joint venture with Jiangnan (?) Sanjiang (Thanks, Dragin!) to make the Traffic Master van in the late 90s, that JV seems to have dried up leaving Renault out in the cold in the worlds hottest auto market, there has been rumors that Renault is in talks with Dongfeng to set up a JV which would potentially see 300,000 Renaults being made per year in China but this has not been confirmed as of yet, and that was announced in 2004! China Car Times can presume that the deal is on ice, at least for the time being.
Without a Chinese production facility, this leaves Renault with the only option to import its cars from Europe into China. The cost of the cars is obviously fluctuating due to the Euro/USD exchange rate (the RMB is pegged to the USD at 7.56) although the imported Renault pricing is reasonably competitive with domestically made Chinese vehicles (they are around 25% more expensive than domestically manufactured foreign brands of a similar spec) it is obvious that if they were made in China, Renault would be in a position to keep production costs down, and increase profits on each model, they would also increase their brand awareness in China.
Tweet This
Share on Facebook
Digg This
Save to delicious
Stumble it
RSS Feed
Those Trafic MPVs were made in cooperation with Sanjiang Auto, an affiliate of Brilliance, located in Hubei.
The Megane was to be the first model of the Dongfeng-Renault venture beginning sometime in 2006, but it apparently never got approval to begin. There was also word that the Scenic was to be produced down in Dongfeng Liuzhou, but that never got off the ground either.
Beijing Auto was in talks with Renault for awhile but nothing came of that either.
Dragin,
Thanks for that. I knew it was one of the Jiangs but my memory failed me.
I dont think that I would buy an imported car like the Subaru, Renault range only to see them hook up with a Chinese partner a year or two later sending the resale value of my car right down.
I agree Ashley, these two global players are on the doorstep and likely to be inside before we know it.