AutoBeta(AutoBeta.net)08/09 Report--

On August 9, Zhejiang Geely Holdings Group (hereinafter referred to as "Geely Holdings") announced that it had signed a memorandum of understanding with Renault Group (hereinafter referred to as "Renault") to establish a long-term partnership. In China, the two sides will jointly develop Renault-branded hybrid models based on Geely Holdings' platform technology. In South Korea, the two sides will cooperate based on the Lectra energy-saving platform to jointly develop models suitable for the Korean market.

Geely Renault said that the cooperation between the two sides will reflect Geely holding Group's open strategy to its vehicle architecture, and will also accelerate the landing of Renault Group's "Renaulution plan" in these two markets.

Some industry insiders believe that the cooperation with Geely marks Renault's return to the Chinese passenger car market and is the first step of Renault's new strategy. In April 2020, Dongfeng Renault shareholders announced the formal suspension of the joint venture. Renault transferred its 50% stake in Dongfeng Renault to Dongfeng Automobile Group, and Dongfeng Renault stopped the business activities related to the Renault brand.

After the dissolution and withdrawal of Dongfeng Renault, Renault Group has three joint ventures in China: Egett (new energy company with Dongfeng and Nissan), Huachen Renault (light commercial vehicle company) and Jiangling New Energy (new energy passenger car). According to the Renault plan, after withdrawing from the fuel passenger vehicle business, it will focus on the two major businesses of new energy vehicles and light commercial vehicles. Among them, the light commercial vehicle business will be carried out through the brilliance Renault Gold Cup, and the new energy vehicle business will be carried out through easy Jet and Jiangling New Energy.

Brilliance Renault is not going well. In July 2017, brilliance China signed a framework cooperation agreement with Renault Group. Renault Group acquired brilliance China assets, and brilliance China will sell 49% equity interest in brilliance Gold Cup to Renault, thus brilliance Renault was born. After the establishment of brilliance Renault, the company plans to produce and sell light commercial vehicles under the Jinbei, Renault and Huasong brands, and the models will be localized to produce three major categories of vehicles-MPV, medium van and van, large van and van. At the same time, it plans to achieve annual sales of 150000 units by 2022, and plans to deploy electric vehicles ahead of schedule. However, three years later, Huachen Renault is getting further and further away from its goal, with cumulative sales of 43000 vehicles in 2018, 40000 in 2019 and 23000 in 2020.

After the repeated failures of fuel and commercial vehicles, Renault will focus on developing new energy sources. As we all know, Renault Group is a giant of European electric vehicles, it has more than 20% market share of European electric vehicles, and its main Renault ZOE has won the top sales of new energy vehicles in Europe for many years in a row. Therefore, under the development trend of new energy vehicles in the future, Renault China will also focus on new energy, which has also become Renault's "lifesaver" in China.

In December 2018, Renault Group announced that it plans to become an important shareholder of Jiangling New Energy through capital increase. Jiangling New Energy will become a joint venture between Renault Group and Jiangling Group. In July 2019, Jiangling Group and Renault Group announced the establishment of a joint venture. Renault Group increased its capital by 1 billion yuan to become the largest shareholder of Jiangling New Energy. Recently, Jiangling Renault's first pure electric car "Yi" official map released, positioning compact pure electric car, is expected to be officially on the market by the end of the year. From the appearance of the new car, the front face of "Yi" adopts a closed grille design, and the headlamp group adopts a "tear eye" design. In addition, the car uses a hidden door handle, sliding back body design, the overall shape is more athletic. As the first pure electric car in the joint venture between Jiangling and Renault, "Yi" will adopt a brand new "E" logo with the tail label "Renault Jiangling Group".

In addition to Jiangling Renault, cooperation with Geely to develop hybrid models is also the focus of its future development. According to the memo, Geely provides platform technology, Renault will provide brands and designs, and Renault will make full use of its strengths in brand strategy, content and channels, ecological service development and optimizing user journeys to create more value for consumers. Industry insiders said it was a win-win deal. Geely has an advantage in the industrial chain, which can help Renault's sustainable development in the Chinese market, while Renault, as a well-known global brand, can help Geely develop its strength in the global market.

It is worth mentioning that personnel changes took place in Renault China at the beginning of this year. On March 1st, Su Weiming announced his appointment as CEO of Renault China. Shortly before Su Weiming took office, Renault released a new strategy. Renault reiterated its China strategy and said that "China plays an important role in Renault's global strategy". At present, the group's strategic focus is on electric vehicles and light commercial vehicles, as well as the development of models of local brands. Renault said that in the future, the company will reshape its business model in China, taking advantage of its assets in China, while taking advantage of the country's competitive industrial ecosystem to develop new mobile solutions for the Chinese and global markets.

There are signs that China, as the world's largest automobile market and the largest new energy vehicle market, Renault will increase the development of the new energy vehicle market and reshape the business model in China in order to achieve better development. However, it is still uncertain whether Renault can win back a city on the increasingly crowded new energy car track. Although Renault is very famous in the European new energy vehicle market, now the domestic new energy vehicle market has become a red sea, more and more new energy vehicle products continue to pour in, and more and more enterprises cross the border to build cars. This track has become very crowded, whether it is Jiangling Renault or Geely Renault, how to achieve a breakthrough and regain Chinese consumers' confidence in the brand. It is the primary problem that Renault has to think about and solve quickly.

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