Production of the current Logan model will end in December this year for good, once the second generation known as the “X52 project” so far starts manufacturing.
The launch of Logan in June 2004 put Romania on the European map of carmaking centers, and eight years later Dacia accounts for 8% of Romania’s exports, most of them made to Western European countries and for 3% of the gross domestic product. Logan has been sold throughout the world as Dacia, Renault, Nissan or Mahindra in India since 2004, and is the car that created the ‘low cost’ segment that no other carmaker dared to touch.
The X90 project which would later become Logan started in 1998, when Louis Schweitzer, the then chief executive officer of Renault, came up with the idea for a simple, reliable and economical car for emerging countries, at half of the price of a Renault Clio, the small class model of the French carmaker. The decision to design the $5,000 car later turned into the EUR5,000 car made the French company buy 51% in Automobile Dacia in 1999 and then some more until it reached almost 100%.
Renault’s investments in Romania will exceed EUR2 billion this year, after the French group allocated to Automobile Dacia and the other divisions some EUR1.63 billion from 2000 through 2010, company officials said.
The Sandero facelift is expected for the second half of this year. Renault Sandero facelift was launched in 2011, but only on the South-American market.
A life cycle of a car is usually eight years and midway through it the carmaker releases a facelift version; therefore as low cost as it may be, Logan follows the standard industry-wide manufacturing pattern. Some carmarkers, however, keep models on the market for 12 years such as Ford Fusion.
The first model of the new generation of the Dacia models is Lodgy, which shares 55% of its components with the Logan. In comparison, the Duster SUV launched in 2010 shares about 70% of its components with Sandero. Only 50% components of the new generation will be the same as the current model’s.
The “signal” about the launch of the future Logan 2, about which Renault has not said much yet, comes in form of an upgrade of the assembly lines of the plant in Mioveni (southern Romania), as the officials of Automobile Dacia’s communication department said.
Jerome Stoll, sales manager of Renault, has previously said the new Logan might be launched by the end of the year, or early next year.
Once the Logan 2 launched, Dacia’s exports should pick up, too, considering the new generation will be designed so as to attract Western European customers, as well, not just those on the emerging markets. Logan currently accounts for 15% of the carmaker’s exports, double as much as last year, mainly because of higher demand from outside the EU.
(English version by Loredana Fratila-Cristescu)