Quality key to continue on ULC project with Bajaj: Renault

“If it (ULC) really matches our DNA, we will go ahead. If the quality of development matches with the promises we see, we will go ahead,” Renault India Managing Director Marc Nassif told reporters here.

Renault has not seen the product yet and will be able to decide on the future course of action only after reviewing it, he added. When asked if the company would exit from the project if it does not meet its parameters, Nassif said: “We will do something different, we will have our opportunities... We do not have a joint venture, we have not made any investments.”

Nassif, however, declined to specify what would Renault “do something different.” On May 13, Bajaj Auto had said it would launch a four-wheeler commercial vehicle in mid-2012 from the ULC platform, which was originally planned to roll out a car with Franco-Japanese alliance Renault-Nissan.

ULC platform

“By middle of next year, we will bring a four-wheeler from the ULC platform. For us, this will be a commercial vehicle and it will be a goods carrier,” Bajaj Auto Chairman Rahul Bajaj had said.  Bajaj had said that the foreign partner would “market it (the product from ULC platform) as a car, but not a low-cost car,” and would be sold at a “mutually agreed price.”

“The platform is same and it will be for four-wheelers. For them (Renault-Nissan), it is a car, while for us it is a commercial vehicle,” he had said. The partners had joined hands in 2008 to make a small car with a price tag of $2,500. The ULC was at first scheduled to hit the roads in India in 2011, but was delayed due to differences between the partners on pricing and design. While Renault-Nissan wanted to price the car at around $2,500, but Bajaj insisted on lowering overall cost of ownership.

In 2010, Renault-Nissan announced the signing of the memorandum of understanding with Bajaj Auto to take forward their ULC car project. As per the MoU, design, engineering, manufacturing and supply base expertise for the ULC would be executed by Bajaj with the support of the alliance, while branding, marketing and selling will be by Renault-Nissan.

Last year, Bajaj Auto Managing Director Rajiv Bajaj had said the partners may explore possibilities of entering into a contract manufacturing deal, instead of a joint venture as proposed at the initial stage of the project.