For Renault, the success of its electric range can be summed up in one word: nostalgia. In an interview for the Autocar site, the chief designer of the diamond brand explains how this strategy will pay off.
As you may know, Renault and many other manufacturers are racing to go electric. To guarantee the success of its future range of electric cars, the diamond brand has bet on nostalgia, or rather neo-retro. After ten years of good and loyal service and more than 200,000 units sold, it’s time for Zoe to retire.
To replace it, Renault will put all its chips on reissues of two mythical models of the manufacturer: the Renault 5 and the 4L. The R5 will be the first to get the ball rolling, with a launch scheduled for 2024 (it will be manufactured at the Renaulution site in Douai) while the new 4L will attempt to establish itself on the urban SUV market from 2025. being to offer electric alternatives to Renault’s two current thermal references: the Clio and the Capture.
Also read: Renault wants to launch a €20,000 electric car to block Volkswagen
Renault is betting on neo-retro, or making new with old
According to the French company, neo-retro is a way for it to differentiate itself from its competitors who offer “similar lines and models to the design glacial”. This is in any case what Laurens van Den Acker, the head of design of the Renault group, declared to our British colleagues from the specialized site Autocar. According to the frame, the adoption of this strategy sounded obviousespecially since the arrival of Luce de Meo at the head of the group: “The reinvention of classic designs was irresistible to CEO Luca de Meo”, he says.
Nothing surprising in itself. The businessman managed to bring Fiat out of its torpor during the 2000s by resuscitating the emblematic Fiat 500. For the head of design, the new R5 and 4L will establish themselves as complete and state-of-the-art electric vehicles, while being “legendary icons” for the public.
For Laurens Van Den Acker, giving a second life to these cult cars loved by the French is a good thing: “I think that‘has a time when there is so much insecurity in the world, when many dark clouds are hovering left and right, making a few cars that evoke good times – a time when the brand was at the top – and bringing up all these positive emotions in people is a good thing”. Ironically, when he arrived at Renault in 2009, a journalist asked Mr. Van Den Acker if he intended to design a new 4L or an Alpine. He then replied:I was hired to design the future, not the past”. Like what.
Source: Coach