Renault chief operating officer Carlos Tavares has called on European governments to reintroduce scrappage schemes or “other market subsidies” to boost car demand.
Tavares told Reuters he would like to see support for the European and French automotive markets.
Several dealers have also told AM they would like to see the scrappage scheme reintroduced as they describe it as “cost neutral” due to the VAT the Government makes back on the scheme.
Dealers sold over 330,000 units under the scrappage scheme in the UK which started in April 2009 and offered a £2,000 discount (£1,000 from manufacturers and £1,000 from the Government) on a new car.
Research from Glass’s at the time showed that the vast majority of scrappage scheme sales were not the “pull forward’ sales many in the industry had feared.
According to the research, more than 90% of new cars bought under the scheme were sold to customers who would not otherwise have bought a new car.
Fewer than 10% of customers who bought under the Government-backed scrappage scheme said they planned to buy a new car in future years.
Do you think a scrappage scheme should be reintroduced in the UK? Leave a comment with your opinion on this story in the box below.
racer47 - 14/06/2012 16:57
Maybe the Manufacturers would be better off if they stopped overproducing cars .. . . Scrappage is not an enviromentaly friendly solution, as the Carbon footprint made by shipping raw materials around the world, producing the power to run the factories and then shipping the finished product around the worls by far outweighs the CO2 produced by older cars. Renault has a massive issue with their product, they have failed consistantly in the Company Car sectors and despite creating the niche have failed spectacularly in the people carrier sector. The cost of franchise is expensive and their network is poor with dismal profitability and customer satisfaction hence the slashing of the range and dealer network. If they along with Peugeot and Citroen stopped designing product aimed at the French market and oozing with gallic styling, or dismally bland vehicles and then expecting everyone else in Europe to accept the product they might actually get somehwere. A lot of Nissan's design and technical work is UK based, so why as an alliance partner can Renault not see the benefit of using the same teams and designing product specifically for a nation of car lovers . . . A scrappage scheme is just a sticking plaster, do some robust root cause analysis and you'll realise that the solution is to focus on emerging markets and capitalise on opportunity, instead of their bsuinesses being subsidised further!