Tesla’s top management had certainly not considered such competition. A world separates the terrible child of the automobile from the cantor of the “essential car”, Dacia. To the technological overabundance of the Californian, the Romanian brand opposes a cult of sobriety to which many manufacturers have tried in vain.
With its battery-powered Spring, Dacia has grilled Tesla on the French market: in 2022, this mini-SUV is in second place among the best-selling electric cars, behind the Peugeot e-208; on a European scale, it has registered 110,000 orders since it went on sale in the fall of 2021. Impervious to automotive weather, the Spring has hardly suffered from its late launch in a market already in transition. Nor a substantial price increase: nearly 4,000 euros in fifteen months, making it exceed the symbolic bar of 20,000 euros – the fault of the explosion in the cost of raw materials, pleads Lionel Jaillet, director of product performance .
The manufacturer is taking full advantage of its competitors’ obsession with pricing power, the ability to sell the same product at a higher price. “Dacia has benefited from the move upmarket of the competition. The brand was already in a monopoly situation on the low segment, the industry opened up an even wider highway to it, laughs Bernard Jullien, lecturer at the University of Bordeaux and a fine connoisseur of the company. Even by raising its prices, Dacia remains well below its rivals. It thus accumulates high sales volumes and impressive profitability.”
The hidden assets of Dacia
Can this state of grace in electricity last? In addition to the price war launched by Tesla on the European market, Dacia is at the mercy of Chinese competition which may one day be tempted to come and hunt on its land. Lionel Jaillet persists in believing in the Romanian manufacturer’s lethal weapon to overcome this sandwich effect: “Our constant work on the design-to-cost [NDLR : l’optimisation des coûts dès la conception du produit] protects us against any frontal attack.”
By announcing on May 11 a reform of the automobile bonus to “take into account the carbon footprint of the vehicle” in order to “support batteries and vehicles produced in Europe”, the Elysee Palace nevertheless risks putting a brake on the rise of the small city car on the French market because it is produced… in China.
“If the context changes, we will try to find the appropriate answers,” replies Lionel Jaillet laconically. Relocation of the Spring to Romania or Morocco, accelerated launch of new models… Dacia has a few tricks up its sleeve to continue to shine. Unless its big sister with the diamond takes over on the battery car “accessible to all”. According to its managing director, Luca de Meo, Renault is working on an electric car inspired by small Japanese cars. Its entry price? Around 23,000 euros.