Mihai Bordeanu, Dacia: “It’s the best time to be in the automotive industry. It is not simple, but it is very intense and interesting”

“2024 was an intense year, perhaps the most intense for Dacia in recent years. We launched the new Duster, we are preparing the new Bigster that will arrive on the Romanian market in April.

The world is watching us, the automotive industry is experiencing some of the most interesting moments of the last many years, both in Romania and in Europe.

A less good part of this current picture is the regulations. I’m referring here to those rules regarding CO2 emissions, and the targets are becoming even harder to reach. Things are complicated and will get even more complicated for 2025.

If the sales of electric cars do not increase significantly, and the regulations do not change, we will receive fines of 16 billion euros from Brussels, at the level of the entire industry, for non-compliance with the 2025 emission targets.

It is absolutely clear that that target must be changed by the European Commission, we are waiting for this decision to come as soon as possible because it is a problem that will affect us both at the end of the year and in 2025,” Mihai Bordeanu, Managing Director Dacia Southeastern Europe, Country Head Romania Groupe Renault said Automotive Forum 2024 organized by Automotive Today and The Diplomat-Bucharest.

“There are only two ways in which you can meet that target: sell more electric cars or sell fewer cars with internal combustion engines. We don’t want to end up in the situation of penalizing car sales just to meet a target. We have to take into account the opinion of the customers.

We still have a lot of work to do both at the European level and in Romania. Changes await us in 2025 following the parliamentary elections in December. We will have fiscal and administrative changes that we do not know yet, but which we expect to find out because they will have an impact on the business.

Many good things happened in 2024, many good things will happen in 2025, but we must also be prepared for the challenges that will appear.

If we look at 2025, we must remain on the podium in Europe for retail sales, Sandero to continue to be the best-selling car in Europe, Duster to continue to be the best-selling SUV in Europe. Things start from here.

The new Duster and the new Bigster are two very important projects for Dacia. We don’t stop here, we are preparing two new models of segment C, the largest car segment in Europe, to have a presence at least as important as in segment B. From this perspective, the future looks good.

The Mioveni plant is highly digitized. We recently concluded a partnership with Google, and all our machines are connected, we have billions of data extracted, processed and entered in the cloud. We are able to analyze, visualize and change processes in real time, optimize, make operational decisions.

It’s the best time to be in the automotive industry. It is not simple, but it is very intense and interesting. 2025 will not be easy, we will have to navigate through troubled waters. Romania’s deficit is large at the moment, and this will certainly have consequences next year. We have no reason to panic now, we must keep our minds clear and be one voice at the level of the auto industry, because the authorities have to listen to us.”