Dacia Thinks It’ll Be ‘Some Time’ Before Europe Fully Embraces EVs

The car industry is a topsy-turvy place right now. Just a couple of years ago, in the face of regulatory pressure, nearly every manufacturer was all-in on electrification, especially those in Europe. But with EV demand stagnating, those companies have been forced to go down a different route – not quite a full 180, but more like a detour, prolonging their ICE offerings and expanding their hybrid ranges to make up for lost ground.

The brands that are emerging from this unpredictable market smelling of roses the most seem to be those that hedged their bets in the first place when it came to offering a broad range of powertrains – brands like Dacia.

The budget-friendly wing of Renault currently offers just a single EV, the little Spring, and true to its brand image, it’s the cheapest ‘proper’ electric car available in lots of markets. It has more in the wings, including a similarly-sized EV launching next year and set to be made in Europe as opposed to the Chinese-built Spring. It might also turn the ultra-basic Hipster concept into a production reality if it thinks demand is there.

It was at the reveal of the Hipster that we spoke to Frank Marotte, Dacia’s vice president of brand, marketing, sales and operations, about why it’s not in a rush to offer any bigger EVs.

“Whenever we’re going to be able to find a customer base that’s accessible for us, and find technologies that are accessible for the customer base we want to approach, yes, of course, EV can be done up to Bigster[-sized cars],” explained Marotte. But he went on to confirm that the vast majority shopping for Dacia’s bigger models aren’t yet ready to make the leap to full EVs.

“That’s certainly a transition that’s going to last for some time, and we’ve seen that originally, most OEMs were expecting that those customers and those vehicles would go to EV before 2030. Now, most of the OEMs have doubts, and we believe that the transition with hybrid has to be probably a bit longer. That’s why we want to invest in a massive hybridisation of our range.”

That investment is already kicking off, with full hybrid versions of the Sandero Stepway and Jogger joining the Duster and Bigster. None of this, though, should come as a surprise to anyone who’s followed the car industry over the last couple of years. What does raise an eyebrow is that it’s part of the rationale for Dacia launching a Dakar Rally programme, something that seems incongruous with its brand image.

“Obviously, [a motorsport programme] affects our ability to develop the drivability of our cars… What we also wanted to test in the Dakar and the other rallies is innovative fuels, synthetic fuels, to basically understand better what could be the added value. We’ve done LPG historically, so what could be the next step? If we can’t go fully EV before 2035, for example, what kind of transition period do we have to manage with which kind of fuel?”

Sadly, what that motorsport experience probably won’t lead to is any sort of hot roadgoing Dacia. The brand does have previous here – remember when the Sandero had an old Renaultsport Clio engine shoved into it for the South American market (where, admittedly, it’s badged as a Renault and not a Dacia)?

However, when the idea of a new Dacia hot hatch was half-seriously floated, Marotte responded with the weary tone of a genuine enthusiast who’s seen this once-thriving market decimated by regulations and spiralling costs over the last few years. “I do personally love the hot hatch, but in many countries, whether it’s due to taxation, regulation or whatever, the size of those markets have decreased drastically.”

So, while Dacia’s ability to keep its costs down is proving very successful in a tight-belted European market, that probably won’t extend to it saving the affordable hot hatch. Anyone else want to step up to the plate?