Like VW, Ford is ditching diesel on its B-segment cars
We recently saw in one of our Auto-Analyses that carmakers were in the process of switching their A-segment cars from thermal engines to electric engines, diesel engines having disappeared for several years on this type of model.

More recently, the Volkswagen Group announced that it was phasing out diesel engines from its B-segment cars, primarily the Volkswagen Polo.

Other carmakers had already done the same, such as Toyota with its Yaris, Nissan with its Micra and Juke, Skoda with its Fabia, Honda with its Jazz, Hyundai with its i20 or Mazda with its Mazda 2.

It is the turn now of Ford to announce the end of production of its Fiesta diesel version. This version represented only a marginal share of all Ford Fiesta sales. The problem is that this model does not yet exist in an electric version. The only alternative remains the gasoline engine, as for the Volkswagen Polo by the way.

The electrification of the Polo will go through the ID2 which will be a battery electric vehicles (BEV) but for Ford nothing is scheduled yet, because all future electric cars from Ford Europe will be based on Volkswagen engines and platforms and today the principle agreement between the two carmakers did not generate a new range of BEVs for Ford.


    
 

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Japanese market of passenger cars fell 18.1% over 9 months 2020
Japan's passenger car market fell 18.1% in the first 9 months of 2020, compared to the first 9 months of 2019, while the decline reached 20.1% in the first 6 months of 2020, compared to in the first half of 2019, due to the coronavirus crisis. So things are improving over the months, but catching up on lost sales will not happen by the end of the year, or even next year.

The fall for September 2020 is 14.8%, quite comparable to that of August 2020, and at this rate the Japanese market should end the year at -17.5% or even -15% if the improvement was confirmed in the fourth quarter of 2020.

It is to remind that Japan is one of the countries that has been least affected by the coronavirus since the drop in registrations has never exceeded 50% on a monthly basis. The months of April and May 2020 were the worst with a drop of 30.4% in April and a drop of 46.7% in May. Then the situation gradually improved.

Monthly registrations practically returned to their pre-crisis rhythm since June and September is the month that comes closest to the figures for the same month of the previous year.

Inovev's previous forecasts for a Japanese market, between -10% and -15% for the whole year, are therefore difficult to achieve, with the -15% drop now being the most optimistic forecast.


    
 

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The European market of passenger cars is down 29.4% over 9 months 2020
The European passenger car market (29 countries) fell by 29.4% over the first 9 months of 2020, compared to the first 9 months of 2019, while the decline reached -39.4% over the first 6 months of 2020, -42.8% over the first 5 months and -39% over the first 4 months, compared to the same period of 2019. The European market improvement is therefore real, but this improvement is slow and laborious, especially when we compare these figures to those of China, Japan or the United States. Over the first 9 months of 2020, China is at -12.1%, the United States at -17.7% and Japan at -18.1%. Europe is therefore the big loser from the coronavirus crisis.

Certainly, September 2020 returned to pre-crisis levels for the first time, but firstly the significant share of lost sales (estimated at nearly 3.5 million private vehicles) will not be caught up either in 2020 or in 2021, and secondly, the lock down in parts European countries (at a local or national level) in Europe do not let us expect a rise of the European market during the fourth quarter; it is even the contrary.

Consequently, the fourth quarter could be worse than it was last September, and under these circumstances, the European market could end the year with a decline of 25% or even 30%. With a fourth quarter of 2020 at the same level as that of 2019, an unlikely scenario, the European market could not do better than -22.5%.


    
 

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Inovev forecasts 60,000 units per year of the new Dacia Spring
Dacia (a Renault subsidiary) unveiled its first battery electric vehicle (BEV), the Spring sedan, which would become the cheapest electric vehicle on the European market, if low speed electric vehicles (LSEV) like the Citroën Ami or the Renault Twizy are excluded. Its price (which has not yet been communicated) would indeed be between 15,000 and 16,000 euros excluding government incentives, meaning 5,000 to 6,000 euros less than a Renault Twingo ZE and 10,000 to 12 000 euros less than a Renault Zoé.

The Spring derives closely from the Renault K-ZE (and rebadged versions from Dongfeng, Nissan, etc.) marketed in China since October 2019. It is a small four-door sedan 3.73 m long (+12 cm compared to a Twingo ZE) which becomes the most compact model in the Dacia range (-35 cm compared to a Sandero). But the Sandero will remain the cheapest model in the Dacia range since its base price is slightly less than 9,000 euros. The question is whether customers will prefer to buy a Sandero with a thermal engine at 9,000 euros or a Spring with an electric motor at 10,000 euros (including incentives). The interest of Spring is that it opens up a new market, meaning BEV at less than 15,000 euros, a market that had not existed until then.

A Skoda Citigo EV is priced at 21,600 euros. This unrivalled price is mainly due to the use of a technical base already at low cost, the Kwid (sold in India) and to a production carried out in China (all Spring models will be imported from this country), which traditionally benefits from a very low production cost.

The Spring's range is announced at 225 km (WLTP cycle) or 295 km in the urban cycle, thanks to a 26.8 kWh battery. The model will be marketed in spring 2021. Inovev forecast 50,000 sales per year in Europe in 2022-2023 then at a rate of 60,000 per year from 2024-2025.


    
 

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Renault unveils the concept of the future electric Mégane
Renault unveiled its first battery electric vehicle (BEV) based on the new C-segment CMF-EV platform shared with all the brands of the Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi group. This first model – named Mégane eVision - 95% prefigures (according to Renault management) the future electric Mégane which will be one version of the future Mégane family scheduled for 2022. The production model should appear at the end of 2021 for a launch onto the market scheduled for early 2022.

Even though the future Mégane with a thermal engine will be produced in Spain, at the Palencia plant, the BEV version will be produced in Douai, in the north of France. Renault has for objective to turn the Douai plant as the largest European production center for BEV, competing the Volkswagen plant in Zwickau, in eastern Germany, which has a production capacity of 200,000 BEV per year.

The future electric Mégane is the first model in a series to come which should include three or four different models on the Douai plant, while Scenic, Espace and Talisman will have disappeared from the assembly lines in 2023. It is to note that the future electric Mégane will be more of a crossover than a traditional sedan. The two or three other models to be produced in Douai should be SUVs of a different segment. It is possible that the third generation Zoe will also become an SUV.

Renault has announced that the CMF-EV platform will have a choice of three different batteries: 40 kWh, 60 kWh and 87 kWh. The future electric Mégane will be equipped with a 60 kWh battery allowing a range of 450 km in the WLTP cycle. In its press release, Renault explains that the batteries are "structural", meaning integrated into the body floor. It is not yet explained how the batteries will be integrated into the body production process, as today the cells are assembled in modules, themselves gathered in a "pack" of batteries. This pack is subsequently mounted (bolted) under the floor of the body already fully built. Also, Nissan for its future Ariya (C-segment SUV), which also uses the CMF-EV platform, explains for its part, that the battery pack will directly integrate a cross member to increase the rigidity of the body. We will see therefore if the two platforms differ in their design.


    
 

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