In January 2021, Renault Group CEO Luca de Meo announced a major new strategic plan for the French automaker. The ‘Renaulution’, as it was dubbed, would be an ambitious three-pronged strategy focusing on bolstering competitiveness, improving efficiency, and doubling down on the group’s electric vehicle transition.
In November 2023, the latter part of this strategy was made flesh with the creation of Ampere, a division exclusively dedicated to ‘intelligent’ electric vehicles, and by the end of 2024, Renault Group had achieved a 33% electrified sales mix (24% hybrid, 9% EV) in Europe.
But Renault isn’t stopping there – Ampere recently unveiled the Renault Emblème, a ‘fully decarbonised’ family vehicle boasting 90% lower overall lifecycle emissions compared to similar models produced today. Add into the mix partnerships with the likes of Google, Qualcomm, and Valeo, investment in next-generation battery technology, and an overhaul of the group’s French manufacturing facilities in Douai, Maubeuge and Ruitz – rebranded as ‘Ampere ElectriCity’ – and its clear that the 126-year-old carmaker means business.
In a challenging yet growing EV market for the years to come, Ampere is moving fast to take the lead in Europe.
— Renault Group (@renaultgroup) November 6, 2024
Stay tuned! pic.twitter.com/NciYKZds5e
At the Economist Impact Sustainability Week in London, SustainabilityOnline’s Stephen Wynne-Jones spoke with Cléa Martinet, vice-president of sustainability at Renault Group and Ampere, about Renault’s approach to electric mobility in Europe and beyond.
Paradigms of change
“When Luca de Meo announced the Renaulution plan, he said the company would undergo transformation based on three paradigms of change,” she explains. “Firstly, he wanted the company to go greener. Secondly, to focus on tech – he had this motto, ‘we’re going to go from a car company doing tech to a tech company doing cars’. And thirdly, that we’re going to stream revenue from new sources – in other words, we’re going to diversify our profits from the traditional selling of cars to the selling of kilometres, kilowatt-hours, and data.”
At the same time, the company’s sustainability agenda was split across various different departments, rather than being encapsulated in one, unified strategy. This prompted a rethink of how sustainable practices could be implemented across the company’s entire value chain.
“For instance, electrification is important, but not enough if you want to be sustainable,” says Martinet. “You have to go the extra mile. So, we have a roadmap of going beyond electrification into the decarbonisation of the whole value chain.”
Elsewhere, with regard to technology, the group adopted a ‘human first’ approach to ensure that tech investment would have a “societal impact”, while some 35,000 people were re-skilled and up-skilled to address the business transition to selling kilometres and kilowatt-hours – “an inner, profound transformation”, as Martinet puts it.
Emotional connection
Martinet, who worked in politics – including working for then-agriculture minister Michel Barnier and first lady Carla Bruni-Sarkozy – before joining Renault in 2016, assumed her current position in 2021, at the time the Renaulution plan was unveiled.
As she explains, social change has been part of the Renault mindset for generations – “a lot of advances in French labour regulation have been shaped at Renault” – and for the company’s new approach, it was necessary to consider all the reasons why a customer may choose to invest in an electric vehicle.
“When I arrived, Luca told me, ‘The transition can’t just be for those who can afford it. We have to strive to make a difference’,” she says. “We needed to put ourselves in the customer’s shoes and see why they would buy an EV.”
As such, the company’s brand messaging has focused on emotional and cultural connections rather than climate-driven urgency – aligning with Renault’s historical identity while adapting to modern consumer expectations.
“It’s about a feeling,” says Martinet. “It’s not just that ‘I have a climate conscience and I’m buying an EV’. It’s more like ‘what is this sexy little car?’ Or, ‘this is made in Europe, I like it’. I think that’s also what makes it very visionary, because it’s not out of guilt, anxiety, or climate panic, by any means.”
To change the company’s trajectory, Renault spun off its powertrain division, turning it into an independent supplier, symbolising the company’s transition from internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles to electric powertrains
“We’re still assembling and making ICE vehicles, but the core of our strategy has shifted from this legacy of ICE powertrains to electric powertrains,” says Martinet. “That shift was embodied by the conversion of manufacturing facilities in France, especially in northern France, where all of them are now producing either e-powertrains or assembling electric vehicles.”
Interconnected thinking
As part of the Renaultution, de Meo’s approach involved restructuring the company into distinct business units along value chains – along with Ampere, there’s also Mobilize, its mobility value chain, Neutral, its circular economy value chain, Dacia and Alpine. Despite being separate units, they remain interconnected – or, as Martinet describes it, “We’re going from a mono sport discipline to the Olympics, where you have five different swimming lanes. One is doing the crawl, another is doing the butterfly, and so on. It’s a different way of moving, and the muscles, the technique, and the skills are different in each lane.”
With that in mind, which value chain is the Léon Marchand (winner of four swimming golds at the Paris 2024 Olympics) of the operation, we wonder?
“Ampere,” Martinet laughs. “Ampere is the powerhouse, really. It’s the one driving performance and it’s EU-native. Although it has a bit of catching up to do when it comes to profitability.”
At group level, Renault reported revenue of €56.2 billion last year, a 9% increase at constant exchange rates, while EV sales accelerated as the year progressed, accounting for 12% of total sales in Q4 (or more than 16% for the Renault brand specifically). As the Renaulution progresses, the company is getting more adept at finding the balance between developing affordable, high-quality electric vehicles and maintaining its profit margin.
“It’s the biggest challenge we have to navigate, really, because we are committed to producing ‘Made in France’ electric vehicles,” says Martinet. “Making that competitive is not easy, because of the cost of energy, the cost of labour, and so forth.”
Horizontal approach
To address this, Ampere has adopted a horizontal approach to innovation, partnering with specialists in areas such as battery innovation and power electronics, rather than seeking to develop these entire functions internally.
“This is a very agile approach, and it also allows us to shift when the market is shifting – because the market has never shifted as much as it has in recent years,” says Martinet. “Technology is shifting, customer tastes are shifting. So, to make us more resilient to change, and more cost-effective also in terms of capital, we partner.”
Martinet describes Ampere as an “innovation lab” for both Renault and its partners, such as Nissan and Mitsubishi, providing tech expertise across various areas. The shift reflects a broader change in the automotive industry, where car manufacturing no longer relies solely on traditional parts suppliers – rather, collaboration with tech, software, infrastructure, and energy providers is essential to be able to adapt to evolving market demands.
“I think it’s the future of producing cars,” she says. “In the past, the world was very monolithic. You were a car assembly firm – you would purchase the doors, purchase the seats, or whatever, assemble the car, and there you go. Now, you need to embed technology in your thinking, so you depend on tech providers, tech companies, and software companies. You also depend on infrastructure companies, too, such as energy providers.
“So, the car-making business has become an ecosystemic business. That’s why the horizontal approach is so important. It’s saying that we can no longer work on our own.”
Find out more about Ampere here.
Think you know everything about @Ampere, our EV specialist in Europe, born to lead the electric and sustainable transition?
— Renault Group (@renaultgroup) October 30, 2024
To mark 1 year since its creation, discover or rediscover what makes Ampere the first European iEV pure player.⚡️️ pic.twitter.com/AbPGQc2fKb
