Renault, which once had an alliance with American Motors (since absorbed into Jeep and parent Chrysler), still wants to cut a new deal with a US automaker.
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The French firm, more recently linked to Nissan, believes an alliance with a US manufacturer would create a global company which would be hard to beat.
Renault executive vice president Europe chief, Patrick Pelata, who headed up the abortive 2006 discussions with GM, said in Paris he believed a company with Japanese, European and American DNA would beat the world’s number one, Toyota.
“There are great people at GM and together we could do great things for sure but you have to have the will to be part of a global alliance and that was not embedded in GM in 2006,” he said.
Pelata said he was a long time admirer of Toyota, which has a purely Japanese way of working, and, while its planning, manufacturing, quality and customer services were good they were not always excellent and it did not have European or American DNA which added other abilities to the business.
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By GlobalDataHe ruled out an immediate Renault return to the US and said the automaker saw greater opportunities in China and India, and even Brazil, ahead of North America.
Pelata said the automotive industry was facing enormous challenges but Renault believed future opportunities would be shaped by the introduction of pure electric cars using lithium-ion batteries.
By 2015, he said, about 30% of Renault’s main customer base could switch to battery power for weekly commuting.
Electric power has strongest appeal to what Pelata called ‘the balanced greens’.
