Renault will stay resolute in its commitment to full-hybrid (HEVs) and electric cars (BEVs), essentially dismissing the usefulness of plug-in hybrids (PHEVs) as it transitions to a fully electrified range. Renault has just been crowned the number two car manufacturer in Europe, behind Volkswagen, but now ahead of Toyota, in the first half of 2025.
When asked whether the firm had any plans to chase down its German rival, Renault’s global sales and operations director, Ivan Segal, told the English magazine Auto Express he would “stick to the plan” by offering buyers “the right powertrain”, rather than muddying the waters with too much choice.
57% electrified
Renault sold almost 395,000 cars in Europe in the first half of 2025, 41% of which were hybrids, comprising the Clio, Captur, Symbioz, Austral, and Rafale. A further 16% were BEVs (+57% compared to last year). A growth mainly due to the launch of the new Renault 5. The firm aims to reduce its average CO2 emissions per vehicle further as it advances, a figure that’s already down by almost 12 percent year-on-year.
“Renault’s strategy is a good one,” Segal insisted. “Full hybrid on one side, and the battery electric vehicle on the other. We don’t know the speed at which they’ll grow, but we know this is where the market will grow.”
“Maybe with EV, the expectation was to have a much faster growth, but the fact that we are balanced with the line-up, for us, it is a kind of sustainable growth for the future,” he told Auto Express. “We know that regulation can change, but we believe that we’ve got the right powertrain, the right range, to be stable and balanced depending on what will be decided, or the evolution of demand.”
Rafale, the PHEV exception
Talking about plug-in hybrids, Segal said: “We see this market is not growing at the speed of the full-hybrid market in Europe. It depends on the regulation; in some markets, PHEV is pushed by the regulation, but less and less.”
The European Commission is not a great fan of plug-in hybrids either. The CO2 emissions according to the WLTP standard differ significantly from real-world consumption, due to several factors. So, Europe wants to discourage PHEVs, and that’s also what happened when Flanders had a plan to put PHEVs on the same tax level as EVs. The plan was quickly abandoned when Europe said that the Flanders region would then miss a ± €280 million EU subsidy.
“So we continue to think that a full hybrid is the right solution for customers coming from diesel, not willing to go directly to EV, and trying to find the right balance between these two worlds. We believe a full hybrid is globally simple for our customers,” Segal argued.
It means that alongside the hybrid models listed above, the firm’s flagship Rafale SUV is likely to remain Renault’s only plug-in hybrid offering: “For some specific needs usage with a huge number of kilometres, we believe that PHEV can be a good solution in terms of consumption,” Segal told us. “But globally, we stick to our plan. Two legs: full hybrid on one side, EV on the other.”
Of course, to satisfy the lower end of the market, Renault still has its low-cost daughter Dacia, which is flourishing lately. Gradually, Dacia will also evolve in the same way as Renault, offering a range of hybrids in its larger models and announcing that the first fully electric Dacias are in the pipeline.
