Captur Success to Push Renault Spanish Plant to Capacity

MADRID – Next June, the Renault plant in Valladolid, one of four manufacturing sites the French automaker has in Spain, will run at its maximum 2-shift capacity, assembling 900 vehicles daily.

The production boost – the plant currently builds 680 vehicles a day – comes as a result of the success of the new Captur model added to the mix in 2013

Jose V. de los Mozos, Renault vice president-manufacturing and supply chain, made the planned production increase official at an Economic Forum organized by El Norte de Castilla, a regional newspaper published in Valladolid, ratifying previous comments he made at the recent Geneva auto show.

The Captur’s success has buoyed the outlook of Valladolid workers, who had to suffer through the disaster of the Modus range that was assigned exclusively to the plant in 2003, launched in 2004 and inexplicably kept in production until 2011, despite its lack of market success.

Saddled with a polarizing design and priced too high in order to avoid the cannibalization of the Clio range, the Modus drove the Valladolid plant to a critical stage in 2009. The situation was exacerbated with the subsequent exclusive allocation of the small 2-seat Twizy EV electric vehicle to the plant, which also has failed to catch on with buyers.

Although Renault management largely has stuck by the Twizy EV, even de los Mozos has acknowledged “Twizy demand did not reach the expected level due to the absence of the necessary battery-recharging infrastructure.”

But the Captur is helping boost prospects for the Valladolid plant. About 120,000 units were assembled in 2013, and the excellent market reception means output should exceed that number in 2014.

In South Korea about 35,000 Capturs were sold last year. The model is the top-selling CUV in Europe and the No.2 vehicle in its segment in Spain.

The production increase will add 250 new workers, bringing Valladolid employment to 2,426 people.

De los Mozos notes Renault’s plant in Palencia, about 62 miles (100 km) north of Valladolid, is tooling up for a 2015 production launch of a new CUV based on partner Nissan’s Qashqai, which is assembled in Sunderland, U.K.