Luca De Meo wasted no time, taking office on 1 July as the new CEO of the Renault group. The Milanese manager with a past in Fiat (and beyond) in just two months he presented a corporate reorganization project. A real revolution, to tell the truth, which above all concerns the management of brands: goodbye to the old approach by geographical area, we return to the enhancement of individual brands, through four specific business units. These are the parent company Renault, Dacia, Alpine (which will be the new Formula 1 team from next year) and the Nouvelles Mobilités area dedicated to electric vehicles and more.
De Meo will personally lead the Renault brand, in an attempt to revive its fortunes after a very tough period, from which the French house came out battered. Also due to Covid, in fact, the first half of 2020 did worse than the entire year of 2009, remembered as one of the worst in the history of Renault: the red, as of June 30, i.e. on the eve of the Italian manager's inauguration, it reached 7,3 billion. Dacia is instead entrusted to Denis Le Vot, so far commercial director of the group: he will insist on the low cost segment. Alpine is the sports brand and the novelty concerning it is perhaps the most suggestive: to relaunch this very popular brand in France, starting next season the Renault team in Formula 1 will be renamed Alpine, complete with blue-white-red colors to enhance the made in France.
A big change, which De Meo announced on the occasion of the Monza Grand Prix and which was welcomed with applause by the French press, who did not fail to mention Alpine's successes in the 70s, especially in rallying. “The brand has a nostalgic side – said De Meo -, but we want to project it into the future. Renault has been present in F1 for 43 years and will continue to give its name to the engines". From the 2021 season there will also be another great novelty, more than anything else a great return: driving one of the two Alpine single-seaters will in fact be the former world champion, right at the time of Renault (2005 and 2006), Fernando Alonso, who had retired in 2018. His partner will be the young French Esteban Ocon, already involved in the current championship,
Finally, the "new mobility", which will have its own independent business unit. “The idea is to bring together all our electric car and car sharing businesses, such as Karhoo or Zity, which are currently scattered all over the place within the group. We want a more homogeneous structure,” explained a spokesman for the French company. The reorganization desired by De Meo is the premise for the new industrial plan which will be presented at the beginning of 2021 and which will be decisive for the future of Renault, which already this year has been forced to cut 15.000 jobs worldwide (mainly outside France, but also in France).
