Ninan Eapen Chundamannil

This is probably one of the most interesting and revealing industrial stories of the year. This car 👇, the 2026 version of France's Renault Twingo, is the first Western car engineered in China and made in Europe - a complete reversal of what used to be. The challenge that Renault wanted to tackle is how to compete with Chinese EVs, which are best-in-class in affordability and speed-to-market. Specifically, they wanted to develop an EV car from scratch in less than 2 years (when it normally takes 4 years to develop a new car for European auto makers) and be able to sell the car profitably for less than €20,000 while building it in Europe. Which is all insanely ambitious if you know about the European auto industry... To do so, Renault opened a Shanghai R&D center (which they called "ACDC" in reference to both the band and the electrical current) where 160 engineers - 150 Chinese and 10 French (usinenouvelle.com/article/c-…) - essentially tried to make Chinese development method work for Renault, in the heart of China's EV ecosystem to understand what was possible. As the lead engineer on the project, Jérémie Coiffier, put it (frandroid.com/marques/renaul…): "We humbly came to learn to go fast. And learning to go fast isn't simply learning to do the same thing faster. It's doing things differently. It's a transformation." And it worked: they had a first prototype in an insanely fast 4 weeks (journalauto.com/constructeur…)!!! The entire development process took just 21 months. The end product is priced under €20,000 - after subsidies, around €15,000 - making it one of Europe's cheapest EVs and competitive against Chinese EVs. 46% of the car is made of Chinese parts (techniques-ingenieur.fr/actu…), including an LFP battery from CATL (the first Renault to use cheaper lithium-iron-phosphate chemistry instead of traditional lithium-ion), and an 82 hp motor from Shanghai Edrive with permanent magnets (unique among Renault EVs). Interestingly, the CATL batteries will be made in Europe too, specifically in Hungary (electrive.com/2024/07/02/ren…). This is one rare story that gives me hope for Europe. Let's be real about Europe's choices here. It could either 1) keep raising tariff walls to protect an uncompetitive EV industry, 2) exit the EV race entirely or 3) swallow its pride and learn to improve. Renault chose the latter, which is the right thing to do. Especially hard to do in the current climate where everyone is told to "decouple" and "de-risk," which is pretty much suicidal in the EV industry: on the contrary you very much need to "couple" and "risk" in order to learn, adapt and compete... Those French engineers saying "we humbly came to learn" probably did more for European industrial competitiveness than all the Think Tank papers in Brussels combined.