Sales of Renault 5 EV start with 50,000 names on waiting list, exec says

Renault is launching its most-anticipated model in years with the Renault 5 small EV, which will start at €25,000 -- thousands less than most competitors -- while being built in northern France. The retro-influenced car will be Renault's first all-new small EV since the Zoe was launched in 2014. Renault brand CEO Fabrice Cambolive spoke with Automotive News Europe News Editor Peter Sigal at the Geneva auto show about the automaker's expectations for the 5, which goes on sale in May.

Where will Renault 5 buyers come from? What are your sales expectations?

Our strategy is to have “two legs” in every segment -- an ICE [internal-combustion engine] lineup with hybrid technology and a full-electric vehicle. If B-segment [small car] customers are choosing the Renault 5, it’s not a competitor for the Clio. We expect the Renault 5 will be in the same position as the Clio in the ICE B-segment. [Note: the Renault Clio was the No. 2-selling small car in Europe in 2023, according to figures from Dataforce.]

It sounds as if you are expecting a lot of conquests.

Yes, a lot of conquests but also we want to convert our Zoe customers to the Renault 5.

There will be two battery sizes, 40 and 52 kilowatt-hours, with 300 and 400 km ranges, respectively. What mix do you expect?

At first our sales will be mostly of the higher autonomy level but step by step the 300 km version will become popular. The smaller battery will be launched a few months after the bigger one. 

Will the Renault 5 appeal to fleets?

We try to balance between the different channels at Renault. In 2023, 50 percent of our sales were retail and 50 percent were fleet. I would expect that 40 percent of Renault 5 sales will be fleet.

Do you have any visibility yet on volume?

We have a waiting list of 50,000 people. We will open orders in May, and we'll start to deliver cars in September or October. The problem is not to see if we have the customers -- the challenge is to have a smooth ramp-up and to be able to deliver to the first customers by October.

Will building the Renault 5 and most of its components in the ElectriCity factory cluster in northern France help to ease the rollout?

Yes, it’s a strategy we chose to keep the car's development, supply chain and production as close as possible to our customers. It will be an advantage in terms of logistics costs and speed of delivery.

When will you use batteries from Renault’s partner, AESC Envision, which is building a gigafactory in the region?

The plan is to start in 2025.

The EV share in Europe is still going up, although demand is slowing. What is your strategy to keep EV sales at a certain level to make sure you meet your EU emissions targets?

The ICE cars we are selling are mostly full-hybrid, so they are very efficient. Regarding our EV strategy, we are going to continue our progress on cutting costs and transfer some of the gains to the cost of the car to have more competitiveness in the future. But even more than that, after launching two EVs in the C-segment [the Scenic and Megane compacts], we will make the shift to EVs in the B-segment thanks to the Renault 5 and the Renault 4 [a small SUV due in 2025.] The biggest volumes in the shift will come in the B-segment.