ROME. War, inflation, skyrocketing energy and commodity prices, lack of microchips. We didn’t miss anything in 2022, in 2023 a new virus in circulation will keep the banks busy. But if there’s one car brand that seems to have barely noticed all this, it’s Dacia, a Renault group brand: it started the year with double-digit growth after ending 2022 with +9.2% in Italy (compared to 9.7% in the previous year). % market decrease) and +15.8% in the thirty EU, EFTA and UK countries (markets with an overall decrease of 4.1%).
Xavier Martinet, Dacia’s world sales and marketing director, claims these results. In the name of an obsession to always respect a “right price” for each model with “a lot of attention to the cost”, a correct positioning of the brand that could also distinguish itself from Renault, a design “that pleases”, one for the request appropriate technological equipment.
The rest is in the near future: “In 2024 we will focus heavily on the new Duster generation, in 2025 there will be Bigster (another C-segment SUV, editor’s note), two other new models in 2026 and 2027. He doesn’t say much about the target for 2023: “I won’t give numbers, but I can say that if the European market grows as it seems, Dacia will grow a little more than others because the brand is already in tune stands consumer expectations”. The only downer is the “continued difficult supply chain”, i.e. the need-based availability of microchips.
Dacia phenomenon, a tea in the desert with the Duster 4×4
by our correspondent Paolo Rossi
Martinet explains how his customers are more loyal to the brand than others when it comes to repeat purchases and how attentive he is to the final cost of the car: “The demand for mobility at affordable prices in Europe remains high and for us this is an opportunity.” Dacia is the LPG champion (every fourth vehicle sold in Europe last year belongs to the Romanian brand), so the gas system will also be Euro 7-approved, a regulation that is much discussed these days, but for which “we need certainties”. .
The brand has transformed its image by investing in its environmental credentials – starting with the brand’s new colour, a shade of green called Liken Kaki – which means a focus on electrification, materials and recycling. Dacia has been reticent on the first point so far: the baby electric SUV Spring is in the price list (the fourth best zero-emission model in Italy in 2022) and only now has the first hybrid arrived, the five- and seven-seater jogger with a full hybrid system.
Dacia, the first hybrid jogger, is the new challenge for 2023
by Paolo Rossi
The point, says Martinet, is not the battery-powered technology, which is already fully available in the group, but maintaining the famous “fair price”: “Dacia strives for the essential, but the difficulty lies in what it is and is in what it is not. Our daily work focuses on keeping and updating the promise to the customer to always offer the best quality/price ratio. That’s why it’s much harder to say no to the essentials than to say yes.”
