Renault mobility services exec: We're willing to 'fail fast'

Jean-Christophe Labarre is the head of strategy and partnerships at Mobilize, Renault Group’s new unit dedicated to mobility services. Labarre, who was previously head of new mobility at the Renault-Nissan Alliance as well as managing director of the Alliance Ventures fund, is working to build a mobility ecosystem with the target of producing 20 percent of Renault Group’s automotive turnover by 2030. Labarre spoke with Automotive News Europe News Editor Peter Sigal at the recent Munich auto show, where Mobilize presented a full range of purpose-built electric vehicles for mobility services: The Limo, for ride-hailing; the Duo, for micromobility; the Bento, for microdelivery; and the Hippo, for last-mile delivery. 

If you had to make a movie pitch describing Mobilize, what would you say?

I really like our motto, which is "Beyond automotive." It's what we need to do make sure that we can come up with the best mobility services, the best energy services to address pain points in your personal and professional lives. It's making sure we can make the best of two worlds, the automaker world and the service world. We've been very good at making cars for 120 years. How do we take the best of this and plug it into future businesses like mobility services or energy services? We’ll offer simple, affordable solutions to a broader audience. So if this is a movie, it's a mainsteam movie, not a niche movie. Renault is a populist carmaker; we want to be the same for mobility.  

You have a lot of partners, for example with iCabbi on taxi dispatch technology, with AMPS of Germany for battery second-life, and RCI Bank has recently acquired Bipi, a subscription platform for used cars. How do you manage all these?

All of these startups and partners have ingredients we need to come up with the right recipe. Bipi, for example, is a multi-brand, subuscription-based used car service in the B2C (business to consumer) segment. We could also leverage it for B2B (business to business) subscriptions to give people flexibility in mileage. We need their competencies, their skills, their platforms. 

Are we still in the "fail faster," or learning stage with mobility services?

This is exactly what we're being asked to do by [Mobilize CEO] Clotilde Delbos and [Renault Group CEO] Luca -- fail fast, test and learn, and correct the trajectory. We need to gauge the quality of our ideas as fast as possible, and we need to get feedback from the market. For our Limo ride-hailing, for instance, we have some of the ingredients. We have the car now, and we’re working on the services. The most important questions are what should the service be and how do you design the service? Many players want to disrupt this segment, which is highly fragmented and complex, and if you sum up the ingredients, maybe it doesn't work. One of our partners, iCabbi, is connected to more than 700 taxi fleets around the world, so we can learn from their customers. We want to better understand the link between the service and the enablers -- the enablers being the cars, which could be a dedicated or adapted car. So, we'll introduce something. Then we wait. If it's successful, we scale up; if not, we change it. If we meet again next year and we have had no failures, it will be a problem.

Luca de Meo has set very ambitious targets for Mobilize, such as that it should generate at 20 percent of Renault's automotive revenue by 2030. But if you look at the company's current financial statements, mobility services account for a very small amount. How do you go from a business that's in the tens of millions of euros to one that's in the billions? 

That’s a good question. We don’t know everything, but having that target is really key to this moonshot. It gives everyone ambition, which is really important to us and our partners. Today, we're very proud that we have a booth [at the Munich show] branded as Mobilize with our first cars dedicated to mobility services. Those cars won't be sold. We are selling usage around ride-hailing, around micromobility, around microdelivery. The way we consume in those markets is becoming more and more digital. So, how do we incorporate this digital work into our historical DNA, which is building cars? 

How important is it to have Mobilize-branded vehicles? 

They are really at the core of Mobilize. The cars are needed to power mobility services and to make sure we can make the best of two worlds that I previously mentioned. But we’re also pragmatic. We could adapt cars from the Renault lineup, such as with the Zoe and Dacia Spring for car-sharing. We are working to identify how to solve pain points once they are identified. These cars aren't a marketing gimmick. We have an engineering and design team at Mobilize. We have the financial power of RCI Bank [Renault's financial services arm] in Mobilize. We have all the petals that we need to create the best flower. This is the first time that we have all the ingredients to be successful. 

Are you willing to work with other automakers? Could you work more closely with alliance partners Nissan and Mitsubishi?

Nissan is not strictly a part of Mobilize, but we're working with them on mobility service topics. I speak almost daily with our Nissan colleagues in many regions. It's very pragmatic: What we are doing? What they are doing? Could we be doing things together? We're leveraging synergies on both the hardware and software sides. When it comes to other carmakers, we want to work with the best partners that can bring solutions to our customers. We're open to every conversation. We could have a mutualization of back offices, for example. 

Are subscription services something you want to focus on?

Yes. No matter the segment, B2B, B2C -- flexibility is what customers want. This industry is being reinvented from scratch. Thirty years ago no one could have imagined that we would sell music from streaming services. So, no matter what the figures are telling us now, there is a shift happening in mobility. People want to have flexibility and a seamless, fully digital customer journey. And that's it.

What have you learned about mobility from speaking to users, partners, and startups?

The big surprise is that mobility services are not a matter of money, or the depth of your pockets. It doesn’t matter what the company wants, but in the end the only question is: How do you solve customers’ pain points. You need to be modest -- and you need to fail. You can even be proud of failing, because even when you fail you learn something. This is a great time for us. We're reinventing part of the company and we're taking risks.