Renault and Nissan intensify race with Tesla to power electric cars

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Renault and Nissan aim to be one of the first vehicle manufacturers to sell 1 million electric vehicles through their joint battery system, placing them alongside Tesla and Volkswagen as industry leaders.

Luca de Meo, CEO of Renault, made the forecast this week at the FT’s Future of the Car Summit, adding that partners were in talks to standardize the battery modules used in their electric cars.

It is a sign that the often fragile alliance is finally healing under the new leadership following the departure of the association’s former head, Carlos Ghosn, arrested in 2018 on charges of financial misconduct.

“If we manage to come up with a very synergistic approach to battery life, the alliance would probably be one of the first to cross the threshold of one million cars sold in the same battery module,” De Meo said.

Reducing complexity and costs is critical for vehicle manufacturers, as they try to reduce the price of battery-powered cars, while increasing the profit margins they get from selling them.

Currently, Renault and Nissan provide batteries separately, but Nissan chief operating officer Ashwani Gupta said the next generation of technology would be “a common battery” for the alliance, which also includes Mitsubishi .

“If we make a 10 million car battery with the same chemistry, the same structure and the same supply, it will definitely move forward,” he said at the virtual summit.

The alliance plan puts the groups at a poignant distance from VW, which plans to sell 1 million electric or hybrid cars this year, though only half of those will be battery-only.

Tesla, which only sells electric cars, is increasing production of its electric vehicles after managing to deliver 500,000 units last year.

Ford senior executives i Stellantis he also warned about the price of motorists out of cars moving too fast towards electric vehicles at the three-day FT event.

Ford’s European President Stuart Rowley said wider collaboration was needed with the government, energy companies and charging groups to push for wider adoption of battery-powered vehicles, as well as the need to lower the price. so that current vehicle buyers can afford the models.

“It has to be addressed at the ministerial level, but it has to involve local governments as well as national utilities and industry participants,” he said.

“If we are not successful, people will be left with older, more polluting vehicles. We can’t leave people behind. “

They were also warned of some clean materials needed to make batteries, if vehicle manufacturers continued to pursue their ambitions to decarbonise the fleet.

As vehicle manufacturers try to decarbonize materials, Tomas Nauclér of McKinsey told the FT event that he expected a risk of a shortage of parts of clean origin.

He expected shortages of materials such as lithium, cobalt and nickel or iron ore for steel in the second half of this decade, as new processes to reduce emissions from extraction or processing make miners struggle to pump enough to meet the demand expected from the rise. sales.

“We will see a reduction in eco-friendly materials in the second half of this decade, in all likelihood and even into the next decade,” he said. “The next five years will be decisive if we see enough supply fast enough.”

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