Saturn Offers Renault A Way To The USA
The Penske Group hasn’t acquired the Saturn brand from General Motors yet, but as soon as the proposed sale was confirmed in June, speculation on the direction that Saturn might go has been rampant.
Some viewed Saturn as simply becoming a retailer for other makes, particularly those brands without a presence in the US market. With more than three hundred surviving Saturn dealerships scattered across the USA, that might allow Tata Motors, Proton Motors, Samsung, Renault and a handful of Chinese makes to gain an important foothold in the highly competitive and expensive to enter the US market.
Renault To Make A USA Return?
But I doubt that Penske, who is the exclusive distributor of Smart cars in the US would be satisfied with playing second fiddle instead of having full market control as he has over the ForTwo. Now, it appears that one of the potential retail customers, Renault, may use Saturn as a way for it to return to the US market which they abandoned shortly after selling off the American Motors Corporation (AMC) to Chrysler during the late 1980s.
If Renault were to sell its cars through Saturn, it would also be able to circumvent gaining Nissan’s approval for the deal as Nissan and Renault are joined at the hip. There had been talk that Saturn would sell cars built by Renault Samsung Motors, a Korean automaker, whose cars are badge engineered Nissan models. But by directly selling Renault built and designed cars in the US, Renault wouldn’t be involving Nissan in the deal.
No Deal Finalized Yet
Automotive News and other industry folks were reporting on this idea, noting that it won’t be until the end of September before Penske will be able to close on Saturn. No Renault vehicles would be available for the 2010 model year, but conceivably under this plan Saturn dealers might be able to sell 2011 models by next summer.
Details of the Saturn deal still have to be hammered out, with Penske not expected to acquire manufacturing capacity from GM for Saturn. This means that Penske will be totally reliable on other suppliers, including GM, to provide vehicles for Saturn which might be a tough sell without an exclusive distribution agreement with Renault.
Competition For GM?
With Saturn, Hummer and Opel on the block and Pontiac preparing to close down, GM needs to get past its current woes in order to move forward. No telling what sort of competition the Renault brand will be to GM and others, but with a full line of cars to choose from, the French automaker could come back to bite GM.
See Also — Nissan, Renault To Tackle Tata Nano
“Over the last decade, we used the Alliance to develop win-win synergies between Renault and Nissan, and that approach worked well when both were profitable and growing,” says Carlos Ghosn, Chairman and CEO of the Renault-Nissan Alliance. “Today, we have to move faster. Seeking synergies is no longer optional, but mandatory. We have assigned a group of experts to focus on building greater synergies to get us through the crisis and position us competitively for the future.”
