While PSA is announcing the closing of one factory after the other, local rivals Renault are doing nothing of the sort. In fact, Renault announced that it will be investing €420 ($542) million for the preparation of the Douai factory, in France, for the production of no fewer than five different cars at the same time. Three of them have been announced for 2014: the all-new Laguna, Espace and Scenic.
The plant is gaining extra facilities, which Renault says are of the most technically- and technologically-advanced. They plan to add a hot stamping section, increasing the size of the plastics unit that would also supply components for export and use at other local factories, as well as adding aluminum stamping facilities, in order to create lighter body panes more easily with the declared goal of reducing CO2 emissions of their vehicles.
Furthermore, the existing equipment will be upgraded, and the entire plant will be retooled and modernized. It will feature one single production line, in accordance with the so-called single-flow standard.
What interests us most, though, are the models which are to be built at the Douai plant. For instance, of the three mentioned earlier, only the Scenic achieved some degree of success in recent years, while sales of the Laguna and Espace have not been great. There’s even been talk of swapping the Laguna for a similarly-sized crossover.
They need to rethink their target audience for these cars to not allow them to encroach on each other’s territory – the Grand Scenic MPV does basically the same thing as the Espace (carries seven plus bags), though it is positioned more downmarket and it’s cheaper to buy, but not really that different. In addition, they said the plant will be able to make five models at once, yet they only specified what three of these models will be.
Note: 2011 Renault Laguna pictured
By Andrei Nedelea
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