It’s not the first time that Luca de Meo, current CEO of Renault, talked about the importance of cobalt-free LFP batteries to make electric cars truly affordable.
At the Renaulution conference, Luca de Meo already suggested that in the near future, electric cars from Renault will be available with two batteries chemistries (LFP and NCM). Now, in an interview to Automotive News Europe, he reaffirmed the importance of this battery chemistry to have profitable and affordable electric cars.
It’s very likely that in a year or two, many electric car models will be available with a cheap cobalt-free LFP battery as standard and with an optional more expensive NCM battery for more range.
Anyway, the much-awaited Renault 5 Electric will have 5 doors, a similar size to the ZOE and sold for less than 20.000 euros. Unfortunately, it’ll only arrive in 2024 to replace the Twingo Electric and the ZOE.
Now I’m curious, if Renault will sit on its hands and wait for 2024 to start taking advantage of LFP batteries, or if it’ll introduce this cobalt-free battery chemistry to its current electric cars soon.
I really think that the Renault ZOE should already be sold with a LFP battery as standard and with an optional more expensive NCM battery for more range. This way, Renault could drop ZOE’s starting price to below 20.000 euros and prevent the success of the imminent “invasion” of affordable Chinese electric cars in Europe.
While Xpeng and BYD are currently focused on building alternatives to Tesla electric cars, ORA is already producing the ES11 (Good Cat), which is a great B-segment electric car and a good alternative to the ZOE – or the future Renault 5 Electric. ORA expects to arrive in Europe during this year and the ES11 (Good Cat) is definitely very tempting…
What do you think Renault will do? Wait for the Renault 5 Electric to start using cobalt-free batteries, or introduce them to the ZOE already this year?
