Renault kicks hybrids and hydrogen to the curb

[wtmusic]

Renault is diverting all research and development money away from hybrid and hydrogen technologies in favour of electric cars, chief operating officer Patrick Pelata has confirmed.

Pelata's vision is that a third of Renault's line-up will be electric within a decade. He has also promised that it will have three battery-powered models on sale by 2011: an electric Kangoo van, a Clio-sized five-seat hatch and a larger saloon designed primarily for Israel but which would also be sold across Europe.

All three new models will use NEC lithion-ion batteries, jointly developed with Nissan, and have a range of at least 100 miles.

http://www.autocar.co.uk/News/NewsArticle/AllCars/238404/

I think my next car might be a Renault. :woohoo:

[Donnachaidh]

1. I thought Renault wasn't selling in the US?

[flvegan]

2. They aren't, but if they're pairing with Nissan

they may get rebadged and sold as Nissans maybe?

[wtmusic]

3. They plan to reintroduce in 2010

they haven't been here since the eighties with that crappy little "LeCar" thing

Renault, Nissan plan electric car in U.S. in 2010

LONDON (MarketWatch) -- Carlos Ghosn, the chairman and CEO of car maker Renault, said the company's alliance with Nissan plans to build a Nissan electric car that will be available in the U.S. from 2010, he told French newspaper Le Journal du Dimanche in an interview this weekend. Renault plans to launch a similar model in France two years later.

http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/renault-nissan-plan-electric-car/story.aspx?guid={02606885-AD46-4295-943D-FCBEF331A9B9}

[kestrel91316]

4. Weird story:

The first Renault I ever saw was owned by, of all people, my grandparents who lived on a remote NV ranch. It was a teeny tiny sedan, pale yellow, and it sat on their ranch in the late 60s because it no longer ran. One would assume that French car repairmen were hard to come by in the region, as were spare parts........

[madokie]

5. More than likely they were tired of throwing good money after bad

Automobiles come in all shapes and sizes like animals do and what it takes to work on an Italian car is the same as what it takes to work on a German or US auto. An auto mechanic is in a lot of ways just like a doctor or a veterinarian is.

[kestrel91316]

6. I just remembered my dad said it was a Renault Dauphin.

Funny how your mind hangs onto bits of trivia like that.....

They didn't have much money to begin with, so if they couldn't repair it themselves at the ranch or have the guy down the road do it, there probably wasn't much hope. I never got the full story on how they wound up with it in the first place. Their real car was a Chevy pickup, lol.

We had a Mercedes-Benz whe I was a kid (ordered at a big discount when we lived in Japan, a year before we took actual delivery in NY, as it came direct from the factory in Germany to the NYC docks??). Don't ask. All the USAF men in Japan were doing it at the time, lol. Anyway, all the places we lived for years, my dad never could find a good mechanic for it. This was in the mid-60s to the early 70s. He finally traded it in for a Mazda wagon and never regretted it. My sister called it The Lemon, but I loved that BIG fire engine red sedan.