Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news. I'm very pleased now to be joined by the CEO of Reno. Look at the mail. Thank you so much for joining us today. I'm Bloomberg. So listen, you've launched all of these new cars, the EV's in front of a backdrop of EV demand falling precipitously. How are you adapting your sort of strategy there?
I mean, actually, we have a strategy since four years on two legs. One is we have very strong iybrid technology, so working pretty well. We're number two, number three in Europe on the ibrid segments, on all segments. But on the other side, we made the decision to develop two platforms, one for small cars and one from medium cars full electric past we think that we need. These are two different sports and you know, an EV and an IBRID card to different animals, and here you see the result.
The good thing about that is that you can get out cars like Renal five, Rental four or the twin or legendary products, you know, and with the best probably the best EV platform for small cars in the world.
Right and then in terms of the sort of magic number for the pricing on evs, what do you think that is in order to have it really take off here in Europe.
Now, look, I think I think we speak too much about least price of the car. What you should include in the equation is also you know, the cost of using this thing. So normally charging is fifty thirty percent of fueling, okay, and the maintenance cost that is actually alf on a car, So normally we should talk about that. But if you look at the Toronto five is twenty five thousand euro as a starting price, it's actually ten
thousand euro less than any of the competitors. Why because we actually focus on the old ecosystem, the platform on this with the Twin that you see, you know, close to us, we will be able in twenty twenty six to go below twenty thousand urine entry price. I think it's a kind of a decent you know proposition already, I mean above twenty five thousand you you probably have fifty sixty percent of the European market in general.
And really a difference from what we were talking about a year ago, right in terms of emissions regulations. You've been very outspoken about this. The EU, on the one hand, wants to sell more EVAs on the other is going to make it more difficult starting next year. How much you intend or how much you think you're gonna have to pay in terms of fines coming next year.
I mean we as an industry, we estimated that if the market continues at that speed, which is out of what we should be for a number of reasons. It's not necessarily our fault as an OEMs because we were the ones that they have engaged two hundred and fifty billion. You're into the thing, so we have all interest that this thing works. So there's nobody in the industry that actually discussed the combonization path. Is the rhythm and the way and the mechanism to adjust to get to the target.
This is the important discussion. So I calculate, we calculate that it's more than a fifteen sixteen billion, you know, if it continues like this. But then you have people like us that are trying to bring let's say, a solution like this one. I mean, give you an information for Bloomberg. We actually made thirty five percent mix of EV this weekend on the open door in France. So it means that when you have the product, maybe you
can change the destiny of thing. But I speak as a as a president of the ASSAY, I have to speak for the old industry, right and if you look at the speed, it's not enough. So we need everybody behind, also the consumer, because we are doing something that is good for the prodectivity and society.
So what do policymakers need to do in order to get that? If they don't want to change their desires, how do they change the desires of the consumer?
I think we are let's say, you know, this is our responsibility with the product. I think we need to accelerate the charging infrastructure. I think we need to give transparency or the pricing of electricity and find a way to make it at least stable. These things are the people, and I believe that you know, in some of the areas you probably need some support to boost the demand because the demand is at that level is not natural.
Yeah, And then as president of the SCA, do you see factory closures this year in Europe happening at a sort of more rapid pace.
I if the thing goes like this, you know, one of the solutions to make the math and to make the average fleet, you know, one of the solutions is to actually stop producing combustion engine cars that are big offenders. And we made the estimation. It's like between passenger car and utility vehicles like a commercial vehicle. It's probably we estimate two point eight million cars. This is ten plants in Europe. So that's that's the of course, the way you get there is, you know, you buy credits to
the Chinese of to Tesla. You you know, you you push the price of evs so that you but you kill the baby, you know, and the cradle or or you know, you stop producing let's say combustion engine car. If you only do that is two point eight million cards. So it's big story.
And then I've a quick question for you in terms of your view on the euse approach on the terrafts or China. Do you see that you could potentially have a partnership with one of the Chinese companies here? Is that going to be the new model going forward? Kind of inverting what we saw traditionally We.
Always said that, I mean, I don't comment on the on the on the tart thing because this is almost a legal thing. This is based on an application of the rules of the WTO that everybody's signed. So I have nothing to say.
Sure, but you adapt your business as a function of what happens with.
Right, Yeah, I mean I adapt on my business. I don't have a lot of transaction between the China and Europe. This is true maybe for other companies. So I don't want to comment on that because this is nothing to comment from business point of view. What we also said is that without good cooperation with the Chinese, I think it would be more difficult to ramp up electrification in Europe because they have in their hands, you know, materials, chemistry,
you know, gigafactory capacity, battery capacity, et cetera. So so we need to find a deal with China, okay, and we need to get used to a form of co petition that meets basic and one side you compete, on the other side you co operate, as actually they did with us when we went twenty five years ago in China to take also advantage of the Chinese market.
And then a final question for you, did you watch Elon Musk's presentation of the cyber cab? What did you did? Would you make of that?
In the autonomous but look, I think you know, I think we are investing in anonomous driving. I guess Renaludd kind of be a follower. We have initiatives with a company called we Ride to go to a level four. I'm more interested, honestly in looking at cars that are evolutionary, connected, intelligent that can speak where you know, the man machine interface is very modern. So I'm more interested on using the power of technology to make kind of machine become humans.
That's I think most important. And then so I don't want to comment on anyway, you know, test lass endeavors and strategy is not you know, I'm not an opinionist. I'm you know, I'm a competitor.
So all right, wellloc at to Mayo, thank you so much for your time there, and the sort of the future of the car industry and how he sees the sort of future of the machine and human being sort of collaborating in the future for this for this industry,