Renault brand CEO Fabrice Cambolive, who is also the Group’s Chief Growth Officer, is seeking growth outside Europe, particularly in Brazil, India, Morocco, South Korea, and Turkey. Key projects include the launch of the Boreal compact crossover in Brazil, the Filante midsize SUV in South Korea, and the start of local production of the Duster small SUV in India. Cambolive spoke with Automotive News Europe about expectations for 2026.

The Renault brand has just completed a lineup renewal in Europe with the launches of the new Clio small car and the Twingo electric minicar. Other recently launched models, led by the Renault 5, helped the brand outpace the global market (up 1.6%), with sales up 3.2%.

“Our strategy is quite simple. We have learned several lessons from Europe: the first is that the world is moving toward electrification, and that’s one of the main drivers. The second point is that we are in a highly fragmented world, with many changes expected in regulations, tariffs, and exchange rates. So you need to have the right level of localization. The last point is having talent and the capacity to partner, the human element,” says Cambolive.

“I’ll give some examples, Cambolive suggests. “On electrification, we have just launched the Filante in South Korea as a full-hybrid only. We will launch the Duster in India with a hybrid version. We will partner with Geely in Brazil to benefit from multi-energy platforms. For localization management, we have five hubs (Brazil, India, Morocco, South Korea, and Turkey) that cover the world, excluding the U.S. and China.”

The capacity to partner

“If we take the example of Geely in Brazil, what is interesting is that Renault has assets, facilities, a dealer network, and a brand that is around 5 percent of the market, but Geely is helping us extend our lineup, as well as their own, with new platforms in our facilities, explains the CEO.

“It’s not only Geely: What we are doing in Europe with Ford, and with Google, where we are extending our connectivity across our lineup, is another kind of agility. We’ll see the first cars from Geely in a couple of months; it’s happening very quickly, beginning with Geely, followed by Renault.”

We will share this platform with differentiated cars,” Cambolive adds. “This work is ongoing, and the cars will be on the market very soon. Geely is already selling imported cars through the new legal entity we created and is beginning to have success with their EX2 and EX5 models.”

There’s Europe, and there’s international

Cambolive doesn’t see models internationally developed and sold immediately on European roads. “For the moment, they’re purely international, because we just finalized the renewal of our lineup in Europe, but with this being said, I think that even as markets become more fragmented, global trends enable you to work on carry-across and carry-over [among models].”

“If you look at the connectivity of the Boreal in Brazil, for example, it’s the same as the Renault 5 in Europe. Same Google Inside, same OpenR Link [infotainment]. What we are doing in international markets helps us improve the competitiveness of all our cars, Cambolive stresses.

“What we are developing in India with the Duster could help us to gain competitiveness. I won’t say export to Europe because we’re already building the Duster (as a Dacia) in Romania. But on parts, for example. It could give us ideas for managing the car’s life cycle.”

LCV market under tension

While Renault is doing very well in the car business, the LCV sales and market share took a dive in 2025. “It was not a surprise because we announced at the beginning of the year that it would be a tough year for LCVs. The energy transition for LCVs is raising many questions for our fleet customers, which is causing significant hesitation.”

“At the same time, we had to manage the phase-out and phase-in of the old and new Master. We didn’t manage to launch all versions of the Master yet. Frankly speaking, we faced a triple challenge: the environment, the market, and our own lineup renewal. It was also made worse by the stoppage of the Renault Express. The market will remain under tension, the level of competitiveness is huge, we’re facing big competitors like Ford and Stellantis, but we will get back in the race.”

Affordable cars are necessary

When asked about the EU regulations and the recent watering down of them, Cambolive answers: “There’s a necessity in Europe to make cars altogether more affordable. That’s what we see now in Germany with the new EV subsidies scheme. That’s what we see in France with social leasing (income-limited EV subsidies). That’s what we see from the European Commission on credits for cars less than 4.2 meters long.”

“We have a lot of offers for consumers inside this bracket. This is a very positive sign for accelerating the transition to electrified cars, and, of course, to BEVs, especially in the smaller A and B segments. It reinforces our willingness to offer even more competitive products, for example, the Renault 5 and Renault 4, and surely the Twingo in the A segment, which everybody abandoned in the last few years.”

“The other signal from the Commission is that they are open to smoothing the transition toward pure EVs, and one of the solutions could, of course, be EREVs (extended range electric vehicles) because you have the opportunity to extend your autonomy when needed. It’s a solution that could complement our strategy, and we are working on that.”

Outlook 2026: profitable growth

Cambolive concludes looking into the future: “We are really focusing on succeeding with our international launches, Duster in India, Boreal in Brazil, Filante in South Korea,  in terms of quality and competitiveness. This is the first objective. The second objective is to continue with electrification at the right profitability in Europe.”

“All the cars we’re launching now are high value, even if they are in small segments, like the Twingo. We have to manage the volumes and profitability of those cars, but I think that, with the strategic choices we made over the last year, we are on the right track to achieve profitable growth in 2026. That’s our objective.”