By Gilles Guillaume
PARIS (Reuters) -French carmaker Renault (EPA:RENA) will control 80% of its electric vehicle value chain well ahead of its 2030 target as it develops partnerships in batteries, electric motors and power electronics, its chief executive said on Thursday.
Luca de Meo said the research and development costs were too high to go it alone and drew parallels with Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL)'s business model, which he described as relying on a variety of partnerships when it first ventured into smartphones.
"Our old recipes are not enough anymore. The huge investments they (the shifts to electrification) require are not sustainable," de Meo told the Auto Motor and Sport congress in Stuttgart, Germany.
"We want to co-invest, co-develop and co-create."
Renault is pushing ahead with plans to split its electric vehicle (EV) and combustion engine businesses as it seeks to catch up with rivals such as Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) and Volkswagen (ETR:VOWG_p) in the race to cleaner driving.
It expects to unveil a detailed blueprint for the new EV entity at a capital markets day this autumn.
Three years ago, Renault controlled just 10% of the EV value chain. That figure now stood at 30% and would hit 80% well before the end of the decade, de Meo said.
Renault was forging partnerships "all along the EV value chain", he continued.
Alliance partners Nissan (OTC:NSANY) and Mitsubishi have not yet said whether they will take part in Renault's future EV unit.
Nissan chief executive Makoto Uchida told the Nikkei newspaper this week that discussions continued on the Japanese group's participation, whether through an investment or another form.