Renault aims to launch one product every year: Sumit Sawhney

Sumit Sawhney, managing director of Renault India, believes the discussion on electric vehicles has just started in India and there are a lot of things that are required to be done before the EVs can take off. In an interview with Shahkar Abidi in Goa, he spoke about the growth and challenges involving company’s successful car Kwid as well as other issues including the debate over emission norms, growth prospect of the Indian market and shared mobility.

How has been the performance of Kwid this year? With several new entrants, do you think it will able to stand out on its own?

Last year, the industry ended up growing at 9.7%. But the segment under which Kwid competes grew only at 2% and that too with the entry of new entrants which were not there earlier. So, with the growth almost flat in the segment and the presence of new entrants, it is not easy to maintain sales of 8,000 units in a sustained manner every month. Last year, we sold a lakh-plus Kwid and we intend to sell around the same number this year.

What according to you could be the reason for such a flat industry growth in the entry-level segment?

Somehow, last year there was so much of uncertainty due to various factors like GST, monsoon, etc. So the prospective customers, especially the first-time buyers, were not moving. You cannot expect a first-time buyer to directly jump to the larger cars. So the first-time buyers were rather compressed to make the decisions. Another reason could also be that there was low demand from the rural market last year and this year, things are improving, but not to a great extent.

What have been the lessons from the Indian market?

One of the lessons that we learned is that with Duster we took a lot of time to bring changes. But the needs of Indian customers are changing very fast. That was our learning. Hence, after every four months, we did something new with the Kwid and that has helped us.

What are the investment plans so far in India?

We are in investment mode and are investing continuously every year on developing new products and expanding our base to make our foundation very strong in the market. We have a plan to bring out with a product every year in the next two-three years.

How is Kwid doing in the export market?

We export to all right-hand driving countries like Nepal, Sri Lanka, Bhutan. South Africa, Mauritius, among others. Bangladesh is one country in the SAARC region which is making tremendous economic growth and so we are there too.

Since you have never been shy of projecting the sales number, how much of number you expect to garner from your soon-to-be-launched Captur?

I cannot project a number at this point in time as prices of the car have not been declared as yet. Though the response has been so far good from the promotions. However, I am sure that it will help us to maintain our position of 5% market share.

There is a lot of buzz these days around the electric vehicles as the government seems to be keen on seeing all-electric vehicles on Indian roads after the year 2030. Where is Renault India placed with regard to EVs?

Let us take a step back. The discussion on electric vehicles has just started in IndiThere are a lot of things that are required to be done before the EVs can take off. We at Renault-Nissan are global leaders in the EV segment. What we don’t have at present in the country is the infrastructure and ecosystem for it and a lot of investment is certainly required for it. So if you ask me whether we have the car and the technology, my answer will be yes. Secondly, if you ask me when we will be coming with it, my answer would be let the issues related to the policies and infrastructure settle down. We will come at the appropriate time.

The debate over diesel versus petrol keeps erupting from time to time. How do you see it?

There is a lot of debate going around diesel versus petrol. But now you see, after so much of debate, finally the government has also realised it just has to set an emission norm. After that, whether the emission comes from petrol or diesel is irrelevant because it is an output. The government has tightened the output, which is good, and all of us (original equipment manufacturers) are meeting that. So the whole thinking of diesel being bad and petrol is good does not hold.

Almost all OEMs including the luxury car makers are exploring the shared mobility space as that is where the next spurt of growth is going to come from. Do you have any plans to get into it?

At the moment, we are focusing well on selling it to the individual customers. It’s not that I am saying no to it, but it is not happening anytime soon.

(The correspondent was in Goa at the invitation of Renault India)