Cheap Dacia electric cars could be close hints boss
Dacia, the brand that currently sells the most affordable new car available in the UK, will apply its budget roots viewpoint to fully electric cars in the future, car express can reveal.
The Romanian company will use its position as part of the Renault-Nissan alliance to develop budget-friendly EVs. The group, which was recently expanded with Renault taking a majority stake in Mitsubishi, will launch 12 new pure-electric cars by 2022.
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Speaking at the recent Frankfurt motor Show, Dacia’s European chairman Jean Christophe Kugler told car express that his team will look at the technology available to Dacia, and make decisions based on customer demand.
“We will remain shockingly affordable,” Kugler told us. “We won’t change our brand territory. We will benefit from the alliance strength and the proven technology – so we can fit that to a Dacia. We have all the electric technology ready and on the shelf. Being part of the bigger alliance implies when we need a technology, we have it. We don’t have to negotiate.”
Although the timeframe for the brand’s first electric car is unclear, Kugler hinted that an electrified Dacia could appear sooner rather than later. “Maybe there is three or four years difference between the much more advanced [Alliance] cars and the technologies we have,” he told us.
“We look at when it will be affordable. We stick to our company model and when it is ready and when there is a request we will plug it.”
In purchase to make Dacia’s electric car as budget-friendly as possible, it’s likely that the brand will use the underpinnings and electric motors from the current Renault ZOE – Europe’s best-selling electric car.
The ZOE was recently updated with a much more powerful 41kWh battery, which Renault claims allows a 180-mile driving range. The smaller and less expensive 22kWh battery limits range to around 100 miles.
As well as electrification, Dacia will branch out into autonomous technology, albeit only on a very basic level.
“Electrification of the market is obvious. Autonomy and connectivity will also be increased,” Kugler added. Dacia’s commitment to autonomous driving will be restricted to rudimentary things such as adaptive cruise control and automatic gearboxes – features that “delegate” tasks to the car.
Would you be interested in a inexpensive Dacia EV? let us know in the comments below…