Autoevolution
By Andrei Tutu
We know how much some of the people out there, especially British motoring journos, love the Dacia Sandero’s affordability, but we’ve got bad news for them. Dacia today announced it is estimating a production drop of about 20,000 – 30,000 units for 2014 and it all apparently has something to do with the Sandero. Oh dear…
Last year, Dacia registered a record production of 343,000 vehicles, but for 2014, the company has only set its target to a figure of about 310,000-320,000 cars. The news comes from Dacia President Nicolas Maure, who held a press conference at the company’s plant in Mioveni, Romania earlier today.
Even though Maure didn’t explain how exactly this influences the overall volume, he said the decrease has something to do with the partial relocation of the Sandero production.
A part of the production for Dacia’s cheapest model is bring transferred from Mioveni to a Renault Group facility in Tanger, Morocco. The latter introduced a second production line last fall and is now ready to cover the operation with smaller costs compared to the Romanian site.
Maure also cited the extreme level of the competition on the international markets as a reason for the production drop. While we’re not here to discuss the aspects of the cruel world out there, the problem with the internal competition is just as complicated.
Dacia’s President said the Mioveni plant was close to its peak capacity of 350,000 per year in 2013 and that it must stay competitive by increasing productivity and limiting wage increases. As you can imagine, Romanians aren’t too happy to see their “creation” being brought to the world via Morocco and the unions will have a pretty interesting time sorting out the matter.
Even since the Renault Group took back the Dacia brand in 2000, the French have invested EUR 2.2 billion (US$ 3 billion) in the company. Still, this doesn’t mean it is exempt from the Renault Group’s financial policies.
Not necessarily as a coincidence, Dacia is now the largest Romanian company, with its 2013 turnover hitting EUR 4.48 billion (US$6.15 million). Dacia’s activity can be translated into 3 percent of Romania’s GDP, or 18 percent of the country’s exports.
And for even more numbers, Dacia has seen its sales jump 18 times between 2004 and 2013, pushing a total of 2.7 million vehicles.
For those who like rounded figures, we’ll mention that 2014 marks 15 years since Dacia became a private company and one decade since the Logan low-cost phenomenon started.
