Until then, its capacity is further eroded by the chip shortage.
“The entire production system for this decade is on the line. Everything was clear at end-2021, geopolitical factors came up and the final decision has not been made, but it is highly likely for it to be manufactured in Romania. In terms of engineering, it is already in Romania,” stated Mihai Bordeanu, general manager of Automobile Dacia.
Bigster was presented in January 2021 as part of Luca de Meo’s Renaulution project meant for Renault group revival and is part of the upscaling of both Renault and Dacia from the small class toward the compact segment.
The next step is to align the range to Euro 7 norms set to theoretically come into force in 2025.
“We have access to Renault technologies and this helps us. We could have launched a Dacia hybrid model much earlier, but we decided to launch it in the first quarter of 2023 and it will be a full-hybrid one. The entire range will be electric at Dacia, but we do not know whether the future model of 2026 will be produced in Romania,” explained Mihai Bordeanu.
In 2021, Dacia lost production worth EUR1.3 billion because of production halts caused by the chip shortage, in line with ZF estimates.
“This year, the situation is far from being solved. We have got used to it, though, we have a way of working and we’re trying to optimize,” said Mihai Bordeanu.
(English version by Catalina Apostoiu)