“There’s so much tension in our lives right now that simplicity has become cool. The more turmoil there is, the cooler our brand becomes.”
If Dacia CEO Denis Le Vot is right (and European sales figures suggest he is), the affordable car maker from Romania is about to get glacially cool. Inflation, salary freezes, rising energy and raw material costs, war in Ukraine... The list of phrases you can append the word ‘crisis’ to is growing almost daily and is, says Le Vot, about to be joined by a new one: mobility.
He explains: “Since World War II, we’ve seen the cost of cars, adjusted for inflation, staying more or less flat or in some cases going down. That’s no longer the case. The pressures are coming from everywhere but especially environmentally. Lower emissions and electrification come at a cost. Nobody can hide from that reality. But people need to drive.
“Dacia isn’t the answer to that problem for everyone, but we are the answer for a lot of people, and we mustn’t lose sight of that fact.”
Le Vot has agreed to give up most of a day’s work exclusively to outline Dacia’s ambitions to Autocar, and he’s in ebullient form, moving from greeting us warmly on the pavement outside the brand’s Paris headquarters to the driver’s seat of a Jogger in the blink of an eye, eager to whisk us to the Renault Group design centre half an hour away.
Le Vot is, he says, inspired by Dacia’s opportunity to answer real-world issues – although it’s hard not to suspect that he has brought similar levels of energy to whatever he has done in his stellar career, from eager industrial and quality engineer through to senior roles in aftersales, sales, marketing and commercial leadership all around the world.
Nevertheless, now a few years shy of 60, this carpenter’s son, who grew up as one of four children in a “very simple, very normal” home, says he has found his calling. “I love selling cars people can afford,” he beams. “The sky is the limit for the brand, because we have the answers to the questions people are asking, and I want you to understand why.”
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I don't necessarily think the Brits have a snobbish point of view about the Dacia brand, Skoda sells very well in the UK. It's now seen as a VW but usually for less cash. That's pragmatism. Dacias have looked a bit dull and their technology is seen as previous generation hand me downs from Renault. IMO that's held them back, plus the UK tends to buy new cars on PCP. So the monthly cost of a new Dacia probably isn't that dissimilar to an equivalent established brand with good residuals.
I believe that British motorists are appalling badge snobs and a lot of it just due to ignorance. I cottoned on to Skoda when I chose a Mk1 Octavia as my company car; "isn't that one of those crappy East European cars?" - or similar was the usual remark. I enjoyed the inverse snobbery of it all and the knowledge that the Czechs took a bag of VW bits and made a bigger, more stylish and better equipped car for less money. Now I feel that Skoda is in danger of losing its value for money position. Dacia on the other hand doesn't seem to have the all too common aspiration of moving up market. It appears to be the only sensible marque in the market at the moment and probably the only one I would consider buying new for many reasons: its rejection of adding unnecessary electronics, especially the so-called "safety" systems, being just one of them. It will have a battle against those badge snobs though - that will go on for years.