Renault CEO: because the battery is too expensive, it is difficult to reduce the price of electric vehicles in the short term.

CTOnews.com, October 1, according to the German newspaper Le Monde, Renault CEO Luca de Mayo (Luca de Meo) said in an interview today that the price of electric vehicles cannot be reduced in the short term, at least in the foreseeable future, mainly due to the high cost of batteries caused by the scarcity of raw materials.

"batteries are expensive, 80 per cent of their cost depends on scarce raw materials, which are becoming more and more expensive," he says. "when investment in new products is amortized, the price of vehicles tends to go up. Then it will fall." it has to be people who have the money, own a garage and can afford a car to make the transition to an electric car. "

For pure electric vehicles, the battery cost is the largest part of the vehicle cost, accounting for about 40% of the vehicle cost. In the battery cost composition, 70-80% are direct materials, upstream involving lithium, nickel, aluminum, copper and so on. Mayo stressed that the price of cars tends to rise at present. If you want car prices to fall, you need to wait for a return on your investment in new products.

He doesn't think Europe should phase out fuel cars too quickly. It is said that Renault will become an European supplier of pure electric cars by 2030, but its subsidiary brand Dacia Dacia will not transform so quickly.

"it's a complex calculation, but if you find a way, you will find that some internal combustion engine technologies can still compete with electric cars," he said of Renault, announcing a profound restructuring. "We will separate the internal combustion engine, including the mobile brand Mobilize, the recycling business and the sports car brand Alpine into separate entities," he said, and then investors can target into some of the business.

In its core business, Renault is building a new company based on a combination of electric vehicles and software. "its aim is to compete with new carmakers, be more technology-centric and have more than 30 per cent of engineers," it is reported that a car company usually has 5 to 6 per cent of engineers.