Renault plans to delay the launches of its electric vehicles.
The Rakyat Post said the automaker had again stated that it would delay for some time the battery powered version of the Twingo city car. This news was broken by just-auto.com earlier in 2014.
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Renault’s chief performance officer Jerome Stoll said: “We’re not in a situation where the market has followed our forecasts. People haven’t yet reached the point where they feel the need to have an electric vehicle for full daily use. People need to feel that need to shift to electric models.”
Issues such as higher prices of EVs compared with diesel or petrol cars and lack of driving range have resulted in battery powered vehicles not meeting sales goals.
Sascha Gommel, an analyst at Commerzbank said: “Most people who buy electric vehicles tend to be premium buyers, as zero-emission cars are more expensive. They’d rather go to premium brands like Tesla or BMW, as opposed to a maker of conventional mass market cars like Renault which needs to justify the premium on its electric vehicles.”
