Renault CEO on Affordable EVs, Regulation, and Europe's Small Car Future

21:48Fabrice Cambolive:So let's talk about Twingo because it's been behind me this whole time and I'm desperate to ask you this question. But you joined Renault in 1992. The first Twingo came to market in October 1992. So what an extraordinary time to be in the business. And that car, you know, it broke all the rules. It was delivered at an incredibly low budget. It was delivered at a pretty tricky time for the business. And people totally fell in love with it. I wonder if you could just take us back to that time and tell us how it felt when that car was first launched.

22:20Imogen Bhogal:For me, Twingo, of course, is part of my emotional career because I began my career in Lyon by a dealership from belonging to Renault at this time. And of course, I was a marketing responsible for the dealership and I had to launch the new Twingo. And I remember that I was so impressed by the car that I decided to buy one for my mother. And I bring the car from Lyon to Toulouse. And I drove the car, the 400 kilometers straight in one run. And for me, it was a miracle because I entered in a new world in this car. Everybody was looking at me. This was this kind of violet color and everything in the interior was intuitive, accessible, but roomy.

23:22Imogen Bhogal:And somewhere I was very surprised and this feeling of roominess is exactly the same feeling I wanted as a customer to have when they will enter in the new one. That's why we discussed a lot the size of the car and how all the functionalities which are enabling to have this really space comfort and at the same time a very very compact car.

23:50Fabrice Cambolive:So obviously the space is a really cool part of the DNA that's been transposed to the new version of the Twingo. What other parts of the DNA do you think that this new version embodies?

24:01Imogen Bhogal:In terms of DNA, I think first of all, if you look at all the Renault cars, we are designing cars to be loved. Of course, sometimes with huge success, some other times with an average success, but at the end we are bold and we want to be loved. And I think the new Twingo is as this part of DNA of Renault. The second point is that now in our new DNA for the next generation, we want to be the pioneer in terms of electrification, not only with pure BEV, as I said, but also with alternative solutions like fully-brite. But with Twingo, we don't make any compromise and it's full BEV car. Like R5, by the way.

24:54Imogen Bhogal:Everybody told me about why don't you put a nice engine on R5 because it's not part of our DNA. We want to be the pioneer in terms of electrification. We will not sacrifice that with our iconic cars. And Twingo is one of our iconic cars. The second point, electrification. Third point, which is for me very interesting in Twingo, is that we are working a lot on human first technology. Even though it's a very accessible car because it will be less than 20 ,000 euros, you have a lot of driving heads. We put the full program of Human First program, you know, all the rescue things we are doing for firemen with, you know, the firemen patent access to flood the battery in case of fire and so on and so on.

25:44Imogen Bhogal:everything has been put in the car to be a real human first technological car and the last point which is the most important for me is this capacity to craft interior which are where you can feel at home and that's exactly what we put in terms of of DNA in this car it's also just I hope I give you I give you

26:09Fabrice Cambolive:some envy to buy it oh my gosh it just how can you not look at it and have just a huge smile on your face. It is so cute. And I think it'd be interesting to know how much road rage that it would cause. There might be a bit of a plummet given how friendly and welcoming it looks. But I want to ask you about the role of nostalgia because Renault 5 e-Tech is obviously a nod to the original Renault 5. This Twingo is a nod to the original Twingo. Same with Renault 4. And leveraging that nostalgia is a benefit that a legacy OEM has in a way that perhaps a newer entrant, a Chinese OEM for example, may not have.

26:47Fabrice Cambolive:And I wonder in this world where there's fierce competition from these new OEMs, how valuable and how important is that nostalgia in cementing Renault's role in the future?

26:57Imogen Bhogal:I don't think it's nostalgia. For me it's more emotion. And it's not a rule because you can't say when you want to be filled with emotion. It's something which has to come naturally. And for me, that's why we are not using just only iconic cars in our lineup. We are renewing also our, I would say, saga cars like Clio, like Scenic. And we are doing that on a different way with different designs. We are launching new models like Symbiose. It means this kind of retro futuristic car is not a rule, but is a kind of lever to be even bolder and to be even a kind of game changer outsider. For example, I think that the emotion we put in R5 and Twingo allowed us to shift our customers towards pure BEV with this emotional way we couldn't have with a normal car.

28:11Imogen Bhogal:And that's the way we want to work. It means it's not a rule, but when we do that, we use that to be even more emotional and sometimes even more creative because we are working in a kind of frame, which is our legacy. And within this frame, we try to liberate ourselves from this frame. And it's very interesting to go beyond what we've learned with the old generation of these iconic cars. Coming back to the difference versus Chinese, of course, when you have a 100 years of legacy, there is something which is important, which is all the paths you created before. I was in Turkey the last two days and in Turkey, for instance, we have four million Renault still in the streets.

29:12Imogen Bhogal:Four million cars. It means when we are launching a new Clio, people know that this Clio will last a long time. We'll be replaced certainly by a new Clio. We'll be repaired. We'll be part of the history of the family. will be always known as a brand. We'll have a residual value which is at the best level because of our history. And this is very important, of course.

29:37Fabrice Cambolive:And those are all the intangibles that you can't put on a spec sheet. They are the things that just make people feel and respond in a certain way.

29:44Imogen Bhogal:Yeah, there are a lot of stories. I listened since we launched R5. Yes, it was a car I took to make my driving license. It was a car of my father. It was a car of my cousin. It was a car where I went out for the first time. And all those stories, of course, you can't replace it when you are a newcomer.

30:06Fabrice Cambolive:I live in Oxford and within, I'd say, a 50 meter radius, I have four neighbors with four Renault 5s.

30:14Imogen Bhogal:And four different colors?

30:15Fabrice Cambolive:Four different colors. There's a black, a white, a green and a yellow.

30:18Imogen Bhogal:Really?

30:18Fabrice Cambolive:Yeah, yeah. So I understand that this sort of choosing an icon has to be treated with extreme caution. However, if I don't ask this question, I know someone in the comments will. Given the original design story of the Twingo, which was based loosely, but still based on the Espace, is that the next icon that's going to be electrified?

30:40Imogen Bhogal:We didn't decide yet. I think in Europe, we have a lot of challenges in the coming years. First of all, we have to consolidate our leadership on the A and B segment. I think we already began the job with R5, R4, the renewal of Clio and now the arrival of Twingo. That's our first objective for this year. The second objective, which is even more important, is you don't see that still, but we made a lot of work to increase and be credible on the C &D segment with the launch in the last years of Scenic, of Megane Electric, with the launch of Espace, with the launch of Austral, with the launch of Rafale.

31:32Imogen Bhogal:And those cars are already a great success. They have a good value, a good residual value, but we have to build on that, because I would say that the first generation which is working and we have to reconfirm that with the second wave of launches we will do in the coming years and this is our objective regarding the arrival of a new icon it's not decided yet but okay let's let's try to we will try to surprise you for anyone who

32:11Fabrice Cambolive:wants to put in their bets, please write them in the comments. I think that's what we need to ask for.

32:42Fabrice Cambolive:Strengthening resilience while lowering complexity and cost. Operationalize secure by design in your organization. Visit cisecurity.org. So I want to ask you a little bit about Dacia, because you are responsible for both brands. And whilst we've spoken a bit about Renault, how actually your customers are very unified in terms of priorities, the value, the efficiency, the cost, the comfort, etc. It must be difficult with the arrival of the new spring, the refresh spring and twingo coming to market at the same time that actually they don't sort of compete for each other's customers how do you sort of square that potential for overlap

33:19Imogen Bhogal:and competition between the two brands i think i think our positioning are really really different we have a lot of studies in terms of cannibalization because of course we are monitoring the potential overlapping between brands and frankly speaking between renaud and Dacia varies almost zero cannibalization. Sometimes you have more cannibalization inside the brand than between the brand. And in terms of positioning, I think the DNA of Dacia is also very clear. The price brackets are truly different. There is one thing for me, which is a benchmark in Dacia is this capacity to have a very low level of distribution cost.

34:05Imogen Bhogal:It means the price you see is a price you pay. And this is for me view from a Renaud side, a benchmark. We try to imitate because it's a real good asset. This business model of Dacia to be very, very productive, insightful, present to the customers with a very, very low distribution cost. In terms of product, no overlapping.

34:35Fabrice Cambolive:How would you describe the relationship between the two brands? Are they siblings, cousins, totally estranged strangers?

34:42Imogen Bhogal:No, we are all part of the Renault Group. When in my position of Chief Growth Officer, I think it was important to let the independence of each brand, but to be able to put in common what should be the best interest for the group. And for that, I didn't create a new level. I decided just in terms of the way we are working with the CEO of Dacia and with the team of Dacia's team, is that we share a few meetings during the month. The analysis of the commercial results, the financial committee, the net pricing committee where we decide the price increase and the level of variable commercial means you have to put in terms of commercial actions.

35:39Imogen Bhogal:And we do that together because it's very important not to have trade-off one month later. Now we are doing cars in two years. We need to take decision and with a very, very reduced time-lapse. And that's why just the fact that we are sharing diagnostic, we are deciding the main levers of the commercial policy together. And we are looking at our financial results together. Is the good mean without too many administrative additional tasks to share, to progress and to converge. And that's what I'm trying to do. It means I'm working as a CEO of Renaud-Boran and then I'm animating those three, four meetings during the month.

36:27Imogen Bhogal:just in order to align all the brands. And this is working very well. And on the other hand, all what they are doing in terms of product, in terms of strategy, in terms of brand markers, are really in the territory of the brand. And I let them work on the way they want to give to their brands.

36:48Fabrice Cambolive:So it seems like there's a lot that can be sort of that shared learning between the two brands. Yes, you can share learning, you can bench,

36:55Imogen Bhogal:you can compare the financial results. You can articulate your balance between volumes, pricing, CO2 emissions. This is the way we are working. It means a brand will remain the core of our driver in terms of strategy. But of course, we have to hunt as a pack.

37:22Fabrice Cambolive:So something that our audience get extremely excited about is vehicle to grid. something that the Renault 5 in particular has been I think pretty bold in saying how it's going to enable vehicle to grid however we also see that actually the issues are not necessarily with the automakers but with the legislation that exists around this technology if you could just suddenly be in charge of vehicle to grid what are the things that you'd ask for in order to make it

37:48Imogen Bhogal:that much easier to deploy I like vehicle to grid because people who are using this these technologies are a kind of entrepreneur. Usually they don't have not only a car, they have solar panels. They manage the charge and discharge of the car. They are following what are the financial impacts of this policy and so on. Now, for me, it's a very, very interesting technology which is deeply linked to the fact that a pure BEV in terms of cost of usage should be in the future, each time cheaper, each time more affordable. And that's why for me, Vehicle2Grid is one of the key assets to accelerate the transition towards a pure BV.

38:38Imogen Bhogal:If I had a possibility to change something, I think this kind of technology needs a lot of partnering because you need electricity, electricity suppliers, you need infrastructure, of course, you need technology in the car. If I would like to change something, it's perhaps to cancel all the administrative barriers you have to put all those actors together just in order to be at the end more efficient for everybody, because a good usage of vehicle to grid is a benefit from for for collectivity and the owner of the car at the same time which is very good i suppose

39:28Fabrice Cambolive:that's the key challenge that it does require that huge collaboration in order to make the admin seem worth it or to indeed to get over some of those hurdles but for that to happen all of the different stakeholders really acutely have to understand the value and that's where it seems to be a bit of a minefield as well.

39:44Imogen Bhogal:Yeah, it's a kind of stock you have to manage. And yes, of course, of course, that's why for me, it's very complicated at the beginning. We made successfully a test on a closed environment in Utrecht. Yes, we've been to visit. And I think after one year of usage, it works. It works very well. people are satisfied but we are working in a closed environment now we have to open this environment to everybody and that's where all the administrative barriers partnering and so on are taking time and i hope we'll be able for instance to do that in uk in the coming months because in uk it could be also very very interesting our audience will be absolutely

40:35Fabrice Cambolive:thrilled when that does happen. Now looking forward to 2026, you are an incredibly busy person. What's on your sort of major top three things that you need to address this year?

40:48Imogen Bhogal:I think, first of all, we have to go on with the product momentum and we have still a bunch of launches to manage beginning with Twingo, but not only. For Dacia it will be also a very important here in terms of number of launches. Now, this is my first objective to secure these smooth launches at the best level of quality. That's the main point. I would say that the second point, which is important, is our international expansion. In 2023, we announced Renault International Gameplan with eight new models. We already launched five, but we want to accelerate with a special focus on India. and Latin America.

41:34Imogen Bhogal:I would say that's my second main objective. The third is to be confident in the preparation of the new C &D segment cars we will launch in the coming years. There is a product preparation we have to do here. And the last point is, I would say, to enhance all the jobs we did with the product, with a customer experience which will be different from all the other competitors. And for me, a good customer experience is a customer experience which is, of course, giving satisfaction to the final customer, but not only that, which is enabling us to get even more loyalty from our customers on the long distance in terms of time.

42:25Imogen Bhogal:I would aim to have 80 % of loyalty on 10 years. All activities together, new car, used car, repair, charging, charging ecosystem. This is an objective which is very important. And I think when you have a good customer experience, you can also decrease your distribution cost. And if you decrease your distribution cost, you can decrease the price of the cars. so this is the four goals

42:55Fabrice Cambolive:And if I could grant you one magic wish that would make some of those things exponentially easier it can be however outrageous you want what would you ask for?

43:06Imogen Bhogal:I would say it's very complicated because if you give me this capacity I would ask so many things

43:15Fabrice Cambolive:It could be one thing with many bullet points

43:19Imogen Bhogal:No, I think I think Renault has all the means to become a global brand with a very good interaction with what we are doing in Europe and what we are expanding out of Europe and for that it would be very interesting to have a very safe and predictable geopolitical situation and that's for if I had the magic power, it's exactly what I would ask.

43:53Fabrice Cambolive:And that, I feel, is a perfect note to end on because I think we could have a whole second, third, fourth podcast on creating a safe geopolitical environment for the automotive industry, for sure. Fabrice, thank you so much for joining us on this podcast. Thank you so much for your candour and level of detail to the answers that you provided. So hugely appreciated. And I personally can't wait to join the Twingo launch later this year. Okay.

44:18Imogen Bhogal:Let's meet in Ibiza for the Tungo Lounge. Yes, yeah, yeah. Thank you very much.

44:22Fabrice Cambolive:Thank you.

44:29Fabrice Cambolive:Most people don't realize how much of their personal information is being bought and sold every day. Data brokers are making millions pulling details about you from public records and the Internet, then packaging and selling it, usually without your consent. That's how your information lands in the hands of scammers, spammers, even stalkers. It's why you get endless robocalls and why ads seem to follow you everywhere. That's where Aura comes in. Aura actively removes your data from broker sites and keeps it off. They also instantly alert you if your information shows up in a breach or on the dark web.

45:05Fabrice Cambolive:But Aura goes beyond data protection. With one app, you get a VPN, antivirus, password manager, spam call protection, dark web monitoring, and even up to$5 million in identity theft insurance, all backed by 24-7 U.S.-based fraud support. Other companies might just sell credit monitoring or just a VPN. Aura gives you all of it, together, at the same price competitors charge for just one service. Start your free trial today at aura.com slash hidden. Protect yourself now at aura.com slash hidden. Thank you again to Renaud and Fabrice. And if you enjoyed that discussion, then please do make sure to check out some of our other podcast episodes as well.

45:47Fabrice Cambolive:But that is all that we have time for. If you have been, thank you for listening.