Why Renault is focusing on refurbishing cars

Cars are typically two to five years or up to 100,000km old, although the site also looks after a fleet of short-term subscription Dacia Spring electric cars that are rented out, and bashed up, on the streets of Paris by the Zity brand. On arrival they are subjected to a range of checks, from performance through to paintwork.

Delivery and inspection takes two days on average, parts ordering and subsequent repairs six and the return transport a further two. Crucially, however, at the end of the process the factory places each car in a photo booth for a ten- minute automated shoot that produces 196 images that are turned into five 360deg videos and 41 pictures. These are uploaded to the dealer so the car can go on sale online immediately, and all just eight days after being sent away. The industry average at a dealership is 21 days.

“The time saving is enormous, and that is one of the largest benefits we deliver,” says Mériadec. “The move to leasing – accelerated by the sale of more electric cars – means that a lot of vehicles are returned to dealers in large quantities at quite frequent intervals. These cars tend to join a queue to be re-prepared for sale, where they take up space and manpower.

By sending their cars to us dealerships can put that time and space towards more profitable enterprises while we get the cars ready.” So far, Mériadec estimates the cost of labour in Flins to work out at €36 (£31) an hour – a significant saving on the average dealership cost of €48 (£41). Once all costs are factored in he reckons the saving to a dealer to be 15%, which goes some way to explaining why the facility is dealing with an increasing amount of stock. He is also at pains to point out the quality of the work and facilities, the factory’s scale allowing it to justify investment in the very best equipment and training.

“The typical repair costs are €600-900 (£510-767) per car, and of course we have had to prove our value to dealers,” says Mériadec. “But I think we are already there, because the savings are evident and the quality of work exceptional. We didn’t set up to take over their business but to make it more efficient. Nor was it our goal that cars prepared by us should be resold at a higher price, although they are signposted as having been worked on here; we do not want to undermine our dealers, to the extent that we even buy our spares through them so as not to undermine that business.

“In France today a vehicle is owned for an average of eight years. In the future we anticipate that will be less than three years. The throughput of cars will triple. There is no way the dealers could cope with that without adding huge investment.”

Cars from rival manufacturers now account for 14% of the intake, typically having been taken in as part- exchange. “As in any garage, our technicians can work on any car,” says Mériadec. The long-term plan is to scale up the facility, as well as opening mirror operations of differing scales in parts of the world with a similar level of dealer hubs. Seville, Spain, is next on the list, followed by Turkey and Portugal, and Mériadec sees huge efficiencies as each new facility is set up. “Going first is always harder,” he says. “Every unit we now open has a blueprint.”

That ‘circular economy’ is set to play a larger part. Already the parts breaking facility, Gaia, is supplying spares, and the 3D printing arm has been called into action. “We had a Dacia Duster with a broken string to support the boot cover,” Mériadec says. “Normally we’d source an entire new cover, but Gaia got us the string.”

Likewise, he recounts a Renault Zoe with a broken seat lever that would normally have required a whole new seat; instead the specific spare part was 3D printed. “We are on a voyage of discovery,” says Mériadec. “One we can only learn so fast with because we are actually doing it. Think about the future and the opportunities we have: subscription cars will need refurbishing more regularly, electric cars are more likely to be leased, in time we will have tens of thousands of electric car batteries to reuse or recycle. Cars and their parts can have second and third lives. That is undoubtedly better for the planet – and I hope for the workers of Flins, too.”

New life for old EV batteries

The first swathe of EV batteries are only just reaching the end of their useful life, so it’s no surprise that innovations for giving them a second life are still emerging.

One example is the betterGen, a portable generator that makes use of battery cells taken from Renault Fluences and Kangoos to provide emission and noise-free energy for use in ways that traditional generators can’t match, from powering boats on lakes, to charging power tools, including indoors without fumes, to running catering trucks without the smell of diesel impinging.