Europe de l'Ouest

After more than a year of very turbulent times, Renault and the Alliance seem to be gradually getting back on track. After the many departures to PSA, the arrival in the opposite direction of Gilles Le Borgne at the head of engineering could already be interpreted as a symbol.

 

The finalization of Luca de Meo's recruitment is another. Indeed, even if he will not officially take over the reins until July, with his appointment and the movements that are already being recorded in the management teams, we can already which path Jean-Dominique Senard intends to put the company on.

 

First of all, the idea that the automotive industry is an industry like any other (and where the invocation of a strong specificity would always be a form of resistance to change) seems to have faded away.
Apart from the fact that the case for the autonomous vehicle, which had powerfully served to accredit this thesis throughout the industry, is now arousing less and less enthusiasm and more and more doubt, at Renault, it is the painful experience of the Thierry Bolloré era that is leading to this return to fundamentals.

Last week Carlos Ghosn told us a story about Nissan, Renault and the Alliance that ended tragically in 2019. Indeed, for him, if his own trajectory broke in November 2018, then it could not be any different from that of the companies he was managing and the destiny of this fragile Alliance that he was leading.

 

There's nothing surprising about that since that's the way he's wanted history to be written for years: just as Jean-Luc Mélenchon [leader of the radical left in France] said "the Republic is me", Carlos Ghosn went repeating "the Alliance is me" and suggesting that if he was no longer there then everything would fall apart.

 

Last Friday Autoactu released two articles that unintentionally referred to each other.

 

One, signed by Laurent Bodin, dealt with the fate of PSA's Mulhouse assembly plant, which saw the production of the new 2008 model leave for Spain under the now well-known doctrine that French sites should not assemble vehicles from segments A and B, even if they are SUVs.
The other, signed by Bertrand Rakoto, analysed the automobile component of the new free trade agreement between the United States, Canada and Mexico and the constraints it imposes on manufacturers to limit competition between high-wage and low-wage countries and relocation to Mexico.

This November, Volkswagen's offensive in the electrical vehicle resulted in an impressive series of announcements and statements by the group's top executives, who seem to want to convince everyone that the inevitable move towards battery-powered electric vehicles is underway and that Volkswagen is the most ready of all manufacturers to lead this change.

 

There is undoubtedly a "Coué method" dimension here that leads managers, afraid of the risks they take, to want to convince themselves, their teams and customers that the battery-powered EV is the right choice.
Above all, there is obviously a very political will to impose a global standard and to create competitive rules of the game for the automotive industry, which will be all the easier for Volkswagen to respect as they will have been largely designed around its convictions and proposals.

 

One of the signs of this political work was given when Angela Merkel, at the beginning of the month, honoured the invitation of the group's leaders to attend the launch of the ID3 assemby plant at the Zwickau plant in eastern Saxony.

As if to mark his difference and/or to highlight what might have opposed her to Thierry Bolloré (Renault's former CEO, recently laid off), Clotilde Delbos (appointed to replace him) began her interim period at the head office of the Renault group with a "profit warning": no, the return to positive cash flow in the second half of the year will not offset the €700 million negative cash flow of the first half; no, revenue will not be constant but will fall by 3 to 4% and the operating margin will be 5% rather than 6% as announced in July; no, the 2022 plan will not be implemented and it is urgent to redefine it so that everyone knows where he is going.

 

She did not just talk to the analysts. She also spoke on Tuesday in a video for employees to tell them that the "Drive the Future" plan had to be taken up again because the market has changed over the past two years and that "unfortunately, the situation did not improve during the summer" and requires that the strategy be adjusted to "get Renault back on track".

The show goes on and the last episode was the brutal eviction of Thierry Bolloré (Renault's CEO) on Friday.

 

This is willingly commented on as the counterpart to Saikawa's which would have been desired by the Nissans and - as some presume - agreed by Jean-Dominique Senard (Renault's Chairman) that the trio of leadership candidates should be put in the order he wanted to see prevail.
The government and the agency of state shareholdings ("APE3: Agence des Participations de l'Etat) which, after having wished for the Renault-Nissan merger and having favourably considered the Renault-FCA operation, seem to have finally understood since the beginning of June that the relaunch of the Alliance should be the priority given to J.-D. Senard would have validated the option. The undertaking would therefore mainly be a process of "de-ghosnisation" of the top management of the two companies necessary for a new start.

 

If this interpretation contains some truth, it is probably a little short, however.