We join for the most important day in Renault’s calendar, as all the bosses check out what’s coming next
When François Provost, a distinguished Renault Group director of vast experience but low profile, suddenly succeeded Luca de Meo as CEO in July last year, there was no suggestion that he would be bothered about trying to mirror de Meo’s well- chronicled star quality or instinct for headlines.
Whereas de Meo was a kind of troubadour car boss who has specialised in orchestrating car company revivals across Europe – and in ensuring his achievements were well and truly on the record – Provost (chosen in preference to the other obvious candidate, dynamic Dacia chief Denis Le Vot) seemed a quieter, less flamboyant character. His official photographs showed a tall, bespectacled, evidently mild- mannered 57-year-old who might have been a vice-chancellor or even a vicar.
Provost wasted little time in reassuring the French public, bemused by de Meo’s rapid exit from cars into luxury goods, that he knew what was needed at Renault: he would be a continuation CEO. He made it clear he had been one of the architects of ‘Renaulution’ – the six-year, three-stage group revival plan announced by de Meo in early 2021 – and would keep delivering it. His deep knowledge and calmness provided just the seamless transition the group needed.
Yet in his first 10 months at the helm, Provost has also made it crystal clear he will do things his own way, producing a fresh suite of his own changes under the title ‘Futuready’ for what he believes is becoming an increasingly tough car market.
The plan simplifies the Renault Group management structure and slashes model development costs by 40%. Renault’s key divisions have new leaders. The old Mobilize and Ampere divisions are reintegrated to save cost and spread talent. There will be 36 new models across all marques by 2030. And Renault will concentrate harder on the Indian, South Korean and Latin American markets, several of them Provost’s former stamping grounds.
All of this is a result of fresh thinking and quick action, and it made meeting and interviewing the new CEO an urgent Autocar priority, so we asked for the favour early. As a rule, CEOs meet hacks somewhere safe and comfortable, in familiarly plush surroundings where passers-by merely murmur and an executive assistant patrols the room outside. But Provost has decided to do it differently.
From the highest echelons of Renault HQ has come an offer to spend seven hours with Provost and his top team at a secret test track south-west of Paris, first witnessing his hour-long review of new models, some close to production, some needing big decisions and more work, and then to be on hand while he tests a selection of cars and vans, some at speed on the track, others statically, several against key opposition products.
It is clear we are going to talk as we look, walk and drive. I am going to see products still years from market, which I can mention but not describe. Most importantly, I will come to understand the kind of decisions chief executives take about the new products for which they are responsible. Do they act as designers, engineers, dealers or customers? Or all of those?
We meet at 8am at the beginning of a brisk, beautiful day, first taking a quick, outdoor coffee as we contemplate a selection of viewing models spaced across the Tarmac of a large skidpan. Provost, warmly overcoated in a way that shows his experience of test tracks, greets everyone in the same friendly way, including me. Today we have a 20-strong travelling crew of designers and department heads, including Renault Group design chief Laurens van den Acker and directors led by Renault brand boss and chief growth officer Fabrice Cambolive.
An immediate aura of authority follows Provost but he does not need or bother to feed it: this will be a collaborative exercise, he says. Maybe he will make some bottom-line decisions along our way, but not until anyone in our group who wants to has had a say. At the outset, this seems an admirable way to reach good decisions. Anyone can pipe up and the group is small enough to contain just one discussion.
We walk towards three clusters of new cars, not getting too close because design boss van den Acker wants us to appreciate the cars’ proportions and staying away is best. Not knowing quite where to kick off, I start questioning Provost about the early engineering credentials that are close to the beginning of his long CV. “I’m not deeply qualified in engineering,” he says, smiling modestly and speaking English at least as fluent as my own. “Let’s say I know enough to challenge things I am told, if necessary.
“But the step-by-step assembly of cars is where I have a lot of experience. Once, we could dedicate an hour just to talking about a bumper. Now, we have bigger issues – e-architecture, battery technology, packaging and efficiency – to stretch us. We have to spread our time over the things that matter.”
Discussion is a big part of life for this CEO, it emerges. Mondays are usually packed with business decisions. Thursdays are spent at the group’s vast and imposing Technocentre, staying abreast of developments. Running the company fits in between. We approach two models that are already nearly two years in development, the 2028-ish Renault Scenic and its lower, sleeker Rafale sibling. The cars are distinct but clearly share key design details. Away from the cars, designers produce images of a new and more imposing rear for the Scenic, which everyone likes. It will be adopted.
There’s debate over whether the two models are too similar: a majority reckons they might be. There’s a suggestion that the front face of one of the models is “too German” and Renault’s diamond logo isn’t well displayed. Work is needed. Provost tells me it will cost multiple millions to make some key frontal distinctions suggested but he’s inclined to spend the money. Renault Design (through its new chief, Alexandre Malval, just four months in the job) agrees to adapt the models along the lines discussed, at top speed, and present them again. The pressure is on everybody to get this pair signed off.
We move on, inspecting the new Dacia Sandero in production-ready form, a vital model for the group because 70% of Dacia buyers stay loyal and the hope is this replacement for Europe’s best-selling car will motivate them to do it. It takes clear influence from the new Duster and Bigster and looks (as ever) remarkably good value for money.
Then we survey the arresting Renault Bridger concept, a special standard-bearer for Provost’s Futuready plan because it was announced this year and is earmarked for the Indian market, into which the CEO is determined to expand. It’s tall and imposing, but Provost points out that it’s just 4.0m long, like a Clio. “In India, you have to double everything,” he says. “They want it richer, bigger, roomier, so it’s an advantage if it looks big.”
I suggest that this imposing baby SUV could work wonderfully in Europe with a Dacia badge on the nose. It’s clear Provost has heard this plenty of times before but he insists the car’s first mission will be “in India, for Indians”. He’s desperate not to complicate things with other powertrains and markets, and to get the car to market as soon as possible. He half-agrees with my suggestion that this model could sell 100,000-plus in Africa, the Middle East and South America but is determined to be super-cautious with a model of such high potential.
Next, we head across the vast proving ground to a handling track that I dimly remember from Renault Sport drives and demonstrations years ago, before Alpine became the group’s favoured performance marque. So I ask the ritual question about rumours of a Renault Sport revival and receive an unvarnished negative answer: “We decided several years ago to move on from there and we will not change.”
Now Provost will make half a dozen comparisons and assessments of Renault Group and rival cars. First, he rides with one of Renault’s professional testers in a super-potent blue Renault 5 Turbo 3E prototype – from which he emerges in a remarkably poised state, given the rate I have witnessed him being hurled into the first bend. Then he steps into a Hyundai Ioniq 5 N, much larger so hardly a comparative vehicle but the closest convenient thing anyone can find to another sporty EV. He’s impressed with the way it emulates a sporty combustion powertrain’s noise and wonders if the same thing should be investigated for the Turbo 3E. Someone writes that down…
Next comes an assessment of steer-by-wire tech, an experimental system built into a Rafale, which the CEO will try against an electric Lexus RZ. In the Renault, it takes a bit of getting used to: it feels lighter than he’d like, though the lack of wheel-winding and sense of agility in tight going definitely gets his attention.
He leads a debate about by-wire steering’s cost benefit, especially in small cars, but still agrees it’s coming. Accompanying is Philippe Brunet, the Renault Group’s engineering head and clearly a by-wire steering enthusiast. He makes the point that once you’re used to it, you miss it when you go back to a “cumbersome” standard system – and Provost’s own experience in the Lexus comparator, where it’s developed to a production spec, helps prove the point. The value of this session becomes clear: in future meetings when by-wire costs are discussed, the CEO will have clear experience of the benefit.
Testing continues. We try a new Renault Trafic E-Tech electric van against its strong-selling Ford E-Transit Custom equivalent, an example of an all-new vehicle meeting an older, respected rival. Both do what today’s vans do: drive as easily as cars. But the fact that the Renault is a generation ahead soon becomes obvious.
Now it’s time for lunch, the French equivalent of sarnies in a trackside meeting room. What that actually means is high-quality finger food, taken with enough time to chat and respect the digestive system. Provost discusses the various unappreciated challenges of making cars in the current transitional era. (“It’s about managing the transformation. It’s hard to find today’s blue-collar staff.”)
Then he turns to the challenge of making decisions as CEO. “I have no difficulty deciding,” he says, “though I admit sometimes what I decide is different from my first position. I believe in consensus, but never soft consensus. I want my people to say: ‘My car is better, and I know exactly why.”
Off we go again, first examining the recently launched Renault Twingo and previewing (in a special antechamber) the upcoming Dacia offshoot, a successor to the Spring. I’m impressed that it looks great, and entirely Dacia-ish, without trespassing on the shapely appeal of the Twingo. Also that Dacia’s people have been given enough licence to include typically Dacia gadgetries, which for now cannot be described.
We take comparative trips in a Renault Filante, the big crossover they sell in Korea, and a statuesque Hyundai Santa Fe. There’s not much to learn there, apart from the fact that the Filante has a remarkably spacious back seat and the Santa Fe interior fails to impress.]
Last, we tackle two MGs: the ZS hybrid, which we agree does everything well but doesn’t have nearly the appeal of a Dacia Bigster, and the MG HS plug-in hybrid, which Provost describes as “a big danger” because, as well as being practical and affordable, it has the kind of visceral appeal in which Renault always aims to specialise. Vittorio d’Arienzo, a leading engineer within the Renault Group, is tasked with producing some value research for the CEO against the Symbioz and Austral.
Suddenly it’s 3pm. Provost, cheerful and cordial with his friendly farewells, finds it unnecessary to burden the rest of us with the weight of his workload, even though he’s heading straight back to his business office in Paris to continue a day that will soon reach its end for the rest of us. He has been both wise and enjoyable company: how many multinational CEOs can you say that about?
At no stage has he barked importantly into a phone or taken time out to fight corporate fires. He has been here to learn, to instruct and to decide things, and I have formed a powerful impression. He seems to be exactly the right person for this job.
Our meeting location
People kept telling me before arrival that the super-secret Aubevoye test centre, where I was scheduled to spend most of the day with Renault CEO François Provost, was located in “the back of beyond”, at least in French terms.
This seemed a bit of an overstatement to someone from the red heart of Australia – given that we’re talking about a 1500-acre estate surrounded by beautiful Normandy farmland, with forests on every side. Yet Aubevoye is remote in the sense that the little rural road that leads you to the Renault Technical Centre from the nearby town of Gaillon doesn’t take you anywhere else.
Yet when you arrive, the sheer industry of the place is evident. Car parks make clear that this is the workplace of hundreds of people, all charged with developing, testing and passing for production every Renault Group model before it heads to market. There are dozens of workshops and offices with many link roads, plus 40 miles of test tracks featuring every kind of road surface. There are 43 test cells, 18 corrosion test centres and even two wind tunnels.
This is the true heartland of Renault. The pride and passion of its incumbents, continuously honed over 46 years since it opened for business, is palpable. What better place could there be for a first meeting with the big boss?
