Groupe Renault’s executive vice president for engineering, Gilles Leborgne, will seek an extension on the European-wide ban on automobiles with some form of combustion engine until around 2040, in a bid to keep providing cost effective cars as the industry pushes towards much more expensive all-electric models.
He told car express at the Munich motor show that, “We will fight in purchase to keep hybrid alive after 2034, 2035, because [in the current EU proposal] we have a full ban of internal combustion engines. It’s not said like that, but it’s zero-emission by 2034, so translated it implies no ICE.
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“We do think it’s not the best method so we will fight to propose a smoother way of doing things, to have a proportion of hybrid until I would say 2040.”
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The main reason for the extension request in Renault’s eyes will be financial, helping guarantee consumers can still afford new vehicles. Of all the brands under the Groupe Renault umbrella, it’s the much more value-focused Dacia that would be in line to continue with ICE production.
“It depends on the brand – Renault will be 90 per cent full electric by 2030, 100 per cent for Alpine, but for Dacia it will be in the range of 10 per cent BEV, but we will have a lot of hybrid, because our technique is simple, we build Dacia only on the CMF-B platform.