Anyone who wants as little ‘China’ as possible in their electric car is finding it increasingly difficult. For example, the new Renault Twingo is a French car built in Europe, but its electric motor secretly consists of Chinese components.
The link between the Twingo and China is not new. Renault’s smallest and cheapest EV naturally had to remain affordable, so after a possible deal with Volkswagen fell through, Renault turned to the Chinese as a development partner. The French L’argus reports that the Twingo’s 80 hp electric motor comes from a Chinese supplier called Shanghai e-Drive. However, the motors are not sent directly from China to Slovenia for assembly in the Twingo, but are assembled in France. In Renault’s engine factory in Cléon, 140 employees will combine the parts into usable electric motors. France would not be France if the trade unions did not immediately calculate that this is significantly fewer people than required for building an electric motor entirely in France. Fortunately, this still happens in Cléon: the electric motors for the Renault 5, Renault 4, and Alpine A290 are also built here, and do not come as a kit from China.
Renault is certainly not the first brand to seek cooperation with Chinese manufacturers for the development and construction of European products. For example, it was revealed yesterday that Ford and Geely might cooperate intensively, while Smart is now partly owned by Geely. Renault also already uses internal combustion engines from the partly Chinese Horse Powertrain in hybrid powertrains, while the small Dacia Spring is a variant of the Renault City K-ZE, which is built in cooperation with Dongfeng in China.