Billed as a mini Dacia Logan, the car is codenamed A Entry and it will wear a Renault badge in spite of its low-cost vocation. Its precise dimensions are not currently known but it will slot under the Nissan Micra-based Pulse.
Scheduled to hit the market in 2014 or 2015, the A Entry will be built in the Renault-Nissan plant in Chennai, India. Renault plans on exporting it to several African countries as well as Brazil, Russia and Indonesia.
It is very unlikely that Renault will export the hatchback to Europe but a modified version of the 800cc engine could find its way under the hood of the next-gen Twingo hatchback as an entry-level offering.
The pint-sized city car segment represents about 40 to 45 percent of the new car market in India. Renault has been trying to get a share of it since about 2006 but financial issues have considerably slowed down the project. The French automaker partnered up with India's Bajaj to create a small hatchback but the latter put end to the agreement a year ago on account that it was "not viable," forcing Renault to develop the car by itself.
Photo by Ronan Glon.
