Renault is hinting it could back further stimulus along the lines of Europe’s successful scrapage scheme, although stopped short of formally requesting such direct help.
Addressing this week’s Automotive News Europe Congress in Monaco, Renault COO, Carlos Tavares, responded to suggestions in some quarters Renault had floated the scrappage idea once more in a bid to kick-start Europe’s moribund automotive sales.
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“What we have said is we are open to study any possibility to support the market – we have not said what kind of support would be our preference because this is not up to us to decide,” said Tavares. “But it is clear having a European market that continues to go down is of concern for everybody.
“By the end of May, the European market is -8% and the French market is -16%. If you compare these numbers to what many of us produced you see they are much worse, so we say that gap is creating concern.”
Much of Europe introduced scrappage schemes at the height of the economic crisis in 2008, although several were criticised for simply hastening purchases that would have been made anyway and for not genuinely kick-starting the market.
However, several lower cost manufacturers reported increased sales as a result of the incentives to scrap older vehicles and replace them with lower emission-producing models.
