Dacia CEO Katrin Adt has called on European lawmakers to relax regulation on small cars to reduce prices and restore growth to the region’s auto industry.
Speaking to Autocar at the recent launch of the new Dacia Spring, Adt said rising car prices were causing a significant contraction in the European automotive industry and cited increasingly strict emissions and safety regulations as one of the main causes.
“The world needs Dacia more than ever and it is more difficult than ever to be Dacia,” said Adt.
“The European market has lost three million cars since 2019. It has never returned to pre-Covid levels,” he said, equating the drop with the loss of the entire German market, the largest in Europe.
“And if you say it’s three million cars, then do the math: that’s 10 factories, 12 million tires, maybe 15 million seats, nine million windshield wipers…”
“This is a bit scary when you think about the economy in Europe, and if you look at why this happened (because it didn’t happen in any other region of the world) it’s because cars are becoming too expensive. And if you look at why our cars are becoming so expensive, the main reason is regulation. This is still a problem.”
Manufacturers must comply with an increasing number of emissions and safety regulations in Europe, and 25% of Dacia’s R&D budget and engineering workforce is currently dedicated to meeting the various standards.
“We have met about 100 regulations so far, and we still have another 107 regulations to meet by the end of the decade,” Adt said.
“The question is, ‘Is that exactly what the customer needs and wants?’ The most used button in our cars is the so-called magic button, where you can turn off all the [ADAS] beeps.
“So we have asked the [European] “The European Commission, together with other manufacturers, must at least freeze the regulation of small cars to have a chance to offer affordable mobility.”
Fabrice Cambolive, CEO of Renault, Dacia’s parent brand, recently said its engineers were “facing a tsunami of regulations coming from Europe” and called for a 10-year freeze on regulations.
“Then we can focus on affordability, we can focus on electrification,” he said. “This will undoubtedly help reactivate the European market.”
Adt previously suggested that looser regulation on small cars could be key to Dacia putting the Hipster microcar into production, but when asked for an update on that programme, he only told Autocar to “stay tuned”.
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