Renault-Nissan CEO Carlos Ghosn wants his French-Japanese car alliance company to be one of the world’s top three vehicle producers. He says that automakers nowadays must achieve economies of scale to remain competitive. Ghosn added. “Fifteen years ago, the largest carmakers were not necessarily the most competitive. It is now increasingly difficult for small players to remain competitive,” he said.
Automakers today fall under two categories: “Those that have achieved economies of scale and those that have not,” he said, adding that Renault-Nissan “is not yet among the world’s largest carmakers, but we are not far away.”
Ghosn said that while Renault-Nissan is “not obsessed” about increasing volumes the company must continue to do what is necessary so that it can “increasingly take advantage of economies of scale.”
Establishing local production worldwide is critical, Ghosn said. Producing cars for export to other markets has become a “thing of the past,” he said. “Carmakers without local production will remain small,” Ghosn said, noting that more than 95 percent of all cars sold in China, India and Brazil are built locally.