In a move that goes against the grain of carmakers of late, Dacia has said it will only turn towards full electrification when it absolutely has to.
The principle reason for doing so is to keep its cars as affordable as possible for its customers.
The brand’s head of sales and marketing, Xavier Martinet, said the same principle applies for hybrid technology. “The question is not technical, we can put that technology on our cars, we have this technology on the Clio and the Captur, we can put them on the Jogger or Sandero tomorrow.”
“The question is economical”, he said. “Are customers ready to pay €3,000-€4,000 more for a hybrid when they could actually just buy a gasoline version or an LPG version that cost only a few hundred euros more and does the trick in terms of CO2 emissions?
“I don’t think our customers are actually asking for a specific technology – maybe it’s different to electric for part of the population, but otherwise, if you look at the masses, people aren’t really asking for a specific technology. They want a car that fills their needs and allows them to go wherever they want to go at the right price.
“The approach that Dacia has is quite interesting, and with the regulations that are coming – Euro 7 and ADAS – the cost of vehicles is going to go up, but the salaries of people aren’t going to increase at the same rate.”
“We’ll have it [the technology] in our cars when we need to for customers to enter a city centre and not have to pay a penalty, but it’s really a question of economics.”