Dacia will be categorically repositioned as an offroad, ‘lifestyle’-oriented brand to rival Jeep as it pushes into new, larger market segments.
The Renault Group’s design chief, Laurens van den Acker, told Autocar that CEO Luca de Meo voiced his desire for the Romanian company to have “an aspiration beyond affordability” upon his arrival in 2021.
“This is where the outdoor theme came up,” said van den Acker. “In my view, there’s no serious competitor for Jeep in Europe. Why couldn’t Dacia be that? There’s no [affordable] brand that’s linked to the outdoors, that gets you out of town, which, especially since the Covid days, is becoming extremely relevant.
“[Dacia] is a brand that’s very well positioned for people who love the outdoors. It gives you two reasons to buy the car, not just one.”
The first car to exemplify this approach will be the next-generation Duster, which will arrive in production form in 2024 as a more rugged and ‘lifestyle’-focused version of the affordable small SUV.
Following that will be the Bigster, a larger and more expensive SUV aimed at the family market.
Yet despite the increase in size and inevitably price, the Bigster won’t be significantly more premium than Dacia’s existing line-up, van den Acker confirmed.
“Larger is true but premium is not true,” he said. “The reality is that if you start making bigger cars, you’re up against other competitors.
“So we can’t simply copy the recipe from Sandero to the C-segment: that wouldn’t work. So we do have to be very clear [about] what’s facing us in terms of competition, because we’re not playing in the same game.
“So Dacia will do what is right to be credible in the C-segment without losing its competitive advantage, which is [low pricing].”
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But surely Jeep have been trashing their own reputation for ruggedness,off road ability and being built in the USA but since the introduction of the Compass/Patriot were introduced in 2006 these core brand values have been diluted, Now the current Jeep line up consists of the Avenger/Compass/ Renegade are designed for terrain no more difficult than the supermarket car park rather than the great outdoors. The only true Jeeps the Grand Cherokee and Wrangler have true off road capability and are still built in the USA but are seiously overpriced here. Jeep UK seems to not want to import the Cherokee,Gladiator or Wagoneer models here why is that. As for Dacia I'd forget about thinking about Jeep as a rival in the SUV/AWD who they should be looking at is Suzuki who produce all wheel drive versions of the Ignis,Swift & Vitara,Dacia prices have risen sharply in the past few years and quite soon be in the same pricing zone as Suzuki
Dacia may be very successful as a bargain brand now, but they must know, in Europe at least there will be NO cheap cars when they are all EVs. People spending EV money will want something more, so moving up market seems right. Its sad, i would much prefer to see them continue to offer the sort of cars they are now known for, but they wont be allowed to sell what their current buyers actually want, so they have to move to what they will be able to sell, and sadly thats up market from where they are now.