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| The front view of the Renault Techno Center located in Guyancourt, France / Photographed by reporter Kim Jong-hoon |
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| Renault's brand mark is standing in the lawn in front of Renault Techno Center. / Photographed by reporter Kim Jong-hoon |
AsiaToday reporter Kim Jong-hoon = When I visited 'Renalut Techno Center located Guyancourt, some 30 kilometers west of Paris on March 8, my first impression for the building was a cement building that looked like a water treatment plant of Korea.
Unlike car R&D institute in Korea, the pond-shaped water tanks around the building made me feel cozy that I thought it was a sort of an ecology park. Renault Techno Center employs approximately 11,000 researchers and houses specialists from all sectors including research, development, engineering, design, marketing, sales, etc.
The Renault Techno Center covers an area of 1,500,000㎡, which is nearly half of Yeouido, and buildings of 425,000㎡ are organically built.
The center houses three major buildings - Avancee where R&D team and design team are, LaRuche where 5 or 6 project teams are on every floor, and Proto where teams that create car vehicles manually - and five auxiliary buildings. Once a car is created in Proto, various tests and corrective actions take place and it takes a year and a half to make into a real car.
One of the eye-catching characteristics of Renault Techno Center is that nearly 90% of the vehicle design and development is handled through digital simulation technology. The Techno Center is equipped with 5,000 computer based engineering workstation (CAE) and 4 large-scale compute image display equipment. There is a simulator called 'Ultimate', and Germany's BMW and Benz come to the center to use it due to its high performance.
Next to Techno Center, Design Center is located covering an area of 27,000㎡ with 2 design studios. It's in charge of design of Renault, Dacia and Renault Samsung. Nearly 500 employees from 27 countries work here.
Renault annually invests 5 to 6 percent of revenue in R&D. It invested more than 2.5 billion Euros last year. More than 250 models of its competitors are disassembled every year in its Analysis Center. It's twice higher than that of competitors. The Analysis center was about to disassemble 20 models of brands like Hyundai, BMW, Benz, Volkswagen and Peugeot.
This institute is designed thoroughly for researchers. An official of Renault Group said, "They started building in 1980s when Japanese cars became popular in European market and finished building after 11 years. It's completely designed for researchers working in the building. The whole structure enable buildings to cooperate organically with other buildings."
This is where Renault Samsung's QM3 (local title is Capture), which sold out its preorders within 10 minutes of the launch in the domestic market, is born.
Following its popularity in Korea, Renault Group explained its plan to supply approximately 30,000 units to Renault Samsung Motors preferentially.
Montes Mathon, chief product officer of QM3, said, "Renault Group will produce more than 200,000 units of QM3 in its plant in Valladolid, Spain, this year and allocate 15% to South Korea."
Considering the fact that Renault Samsung Motors' domestic performance was 60,027 units last year, it means supply of QM3 itself coming to Korea would be nearly half amount of the annual sales. Renault Samsung plans to revive its depression by taking the bull by the horns.
So far, this model's cumulative production is only 190,000 units however, Mathon revealed that they made an ambitious goal to meet the demand by producing the units at maximum level this year.
QM3's main competitors are Chevrolet's Trax, Nissan's Juke, and Peugeot 2009 to be released in the first half of 2014.
Considering its supply of QM3 in Asia-Pacific region accounts for approximately 20%, its plan to supply 15% to Korean market suggests that the group has a special interest in Korean market.
Among Asian countries, Korea is the only country that actual vehicles are stored. Renault Samsung Motors promoted limited sale of 1,000 units of QM3 last year and will deliver its pre-orders starting from the end of this month. Other countries in Asia-Pacific region have not yet secured the vehicle due to shortage of products.
Apart from QM3 supplies, Korea is enjoying advantage in terms of price.
Capture is priced between 15,000 to 24,000 Euros in Europe depending on the options selected. Chief product officer Mathon stated that supplies for Korean market will be luxury cars priced above 20,000 Euros (approximately 29.4 billion won), which accounts for nearly 65% of the total production volume.
Although long-distance transport expense is added to cars imported to Korea, the vehicle can be priced at below 30 million won due to minimized margin, which is three times lower than in European market.
An official of Renault Samsung Motors said, "Renault Samsung has improved Renault Group's awareness so domestic market can function as a test market of QM3."
In order to support Renault Samsung Motors, Renault Group reduced the price as a part of its support policy.
At the press conference held in Geneva Motor Show, Renault Group Vice Chairman Jerome Stoll said, "When Korean customers visit Renault Samsung Motors exhibition to see QM3, they will be seeing other cars like SM series," revealing that QM3 would work as a loss leader to attract customers and to sell other brands of Renault Samsung much more."
The company showed its intention to make other series like QM5 more popular with the help of QM3.
Meanwhile, the Techno Center is currently working to create the best engine and design structure for new types of vehicle and to create competitive power of Renault.
