Basic instinct

As the world becomes more chaotic and complicated, a brand predicated on simplicity will only appeal more. Jim Holder talks to Dacia boss Denis Le Vot about his plans for growth

- Jim Holder

"There's so much tension in our lives right now that simplicity has become cool. The more turmoil there is, the cooler our brand becomes."

If Dacia CEO Denis Le Vot is right (and European sales figures suggest he is), the affordable car maker from Romania is about to get glacially cool. Inflation, salary freezes, rising energy and raw material costs, war in Ukraine... The list of phrases you can append the word 'crisis' to is growing almost daily and is, says Le Vot, about to be joined by a new one: mobility.

He explains: "Since World War II, we've seen the cost of cars, adjusted for inflation, staying more or less flat or in some cases going down. That's no longer the case. The pressures are coming from everywhere but especially environmentally. Lower emissions and electrification come at a cost. Nobody can hide from that reality. But people need to drive.

"Dacia isn't the answer to that problem for everyone, but we are the answer for a lot of people, and we mustn't lose sight of that fact."

Le Vot has agreed to give up most of a day's work exclusively to outline Dacia's ambitions to Autocar, and he's in ebullient form, moving from greeting us warmly on the pavement outside the brand's Paris headquarters to the driver's seat of a Jogger in the blink of an eye, eager to whisk us to the Renault Group design centre half an hour away.

Le Vot is, he says, inspired by Dacia's opportunity to answer real-world issues - although it's hard not to suspect that he has brought similar levels of energy to whatever he has done in his stellar career, from eager industrial and quality engineer through to senior roles in aftersales, sales, marketing and commercial leadership all around the world.