Ford + Renault: La alianza de vehículos eléctricos de 20.000 € contra Tesla y BYD

Key Takeaways

• The Deal: Ford will launch two Ford-branded EVs from 2028, built by Renault on its Ampere platform in northern France.
• The Target: The €20,000-€25,000 segment where Chinese brands dominate and Western OEMs have struggled.
• The Economics: Platform sharing cuts EV development costs 30-40% by pooling R&D and tooling across brands.

On December 9, 2025, Ford and Renault announced a strategic partnership that cuts to the heart of Europe’s EV problem: affordable electric cars.

Two Ford-branded EVs. Built on Renault’s Ampere platform. Manufactured at Renault’s ElectriCity cluster in northern France. First model arriving early 2028.

This isn’t badge engineering or a token collaboration. Ford is outsourcing its entire affordable EV strategy to Renault because developing a dedicated small-car platform in-house would cost billions that Ford’s European volumes can’t justify.

The partnership also includes a Letter of Intent on light commercial vehicles, signaling potential expansion into electric vans.

The Platform Economics: Why Sharing Works

Developing a new EV platform costs $1-2 billion in engineering, tooling, and validation. For a luxury SUV, you can spread that cost across high-margin vehicles. For a €20,000 city car with thin margins, the math simply doesn’t work unless you share the investment.

Renault’s Ampere AmpR Small platform is purpose-built for exactly this scenario: maximum component reuse across multiple brands and nameplates.

What makes it cost-efficient:

• Modular battery pack: Four interchangeable battery modules allow different capacities (roughly 40-52 kWh) using the same enclosure and mounting points. One design serves multiple range tiers.
• Centralized compute: Instead of 60-80 separate electronic control units scattered throughout the vehicle, Ampere uses a software-defined architecture with a few high-performance computers running unified software called CAR OS.
• Standard power electronics: A single scalable “powerbox” module supports both 400V and 800V battery systems, enabling faster charging without requiring separate designs.

The result: fewer unique parts, simpler final assembly, and lower per-vehicle manufacturing cost.

The volume math is compelling: AmpR Small will underpin the Renault 5 (€24,990 base), Alpine A290 performance variant, a Nissan compact EV, and now two Ford models. That’s potentially 500,000+ units per year across four brands, all sharing the same skateboard architecture.

When you spread $2 billion in platform development across 500,000 annual units over a 5-year product cycle, the per-unit engineering burden drops from over $2,000 to roughly $800. Supplier pricing improves with volume. Tooling amortizes faster.

Ford gets a turnkey affordable EV without the upfront investment. Renault gets the scale it needs to fully utilize its ElectriCity manufacturing cluster in northern France.

The €20,000 Problem

Europe’s affordable EV market is finally emerging in 2025, but it remains thin and heavily dependent on government subsidies.

Current landscape (late 2025 list prices, before incentives):

• Dacia Spring: ~€19,990 (bare-bones, limited range)
• Citroën ë-C3: ~€23,000-€25,000
• Renault 5 E-Tech: €24,990 base (up to 410 km WLTP range)
• MG4 Standard: €25,990 (often below €25K with dealer promotions)

Most of these vehicles barely break even at their list prices. Automakers sell them to meet EU fleet CO₂ targets and avoid fines, not because the unit economics are attractive.

Why the price floor stays stubbornly high:

1. Battery costs: Even with a 27% drop in average battery prices since 2022 and another 28% projected by 2027, packs remain the single largest cost component on any EV.

2. Safety and software mandates: Euro NCAP ratings, mandatory advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS), and new cybersecurity regulations add hundreds of euros per vehicle that low-margin platforms struggle to absorb.

3. Legacy cost structures: Traditional dealer networks, high marketing spend, and complex financing operations create overhead that lean Chinese competitors simply don’t carry.

The Chinese pressure is real: BYD, MG (owned by SAIC), and other Chinese brands have become the price anchors forcing Western OEMs to compete at lower price points. They benefit from:

• Vertical integration (BYD makes its own batteries, chips, and motors)
• Simpler regulatory overhead in their home market development
• Leaner direct-to-consumer sales models

The uncomfortable reality: most sub-€25K EVs in Europe only reach “affordable” territory because of heavy government subsidies. France’s social leasing program, for example, offers the Citroën ë-C3 for around €100/month to qualifying low-income buyers. That’s roughly €3,600 in total lease payments for a vehicle with a €23,000 sticker price.

Without these programs, the affordable EV market in its current form would largely collapse.

Ford’s Strategic Retreat (and Calculated Bet)

Ford killed the Fiesta and Focus in Europe because it couldn’t make money selling small ICE vehicles. The shift to electric was supposed to change those economics by reducing powertrain complexity. It didn’t.

Building a dedicated small-car EV platform would cost billions. Ford’s European sales volumes don’t justify that investment, especially when Chinese competitors can undercut any price Ford might achieve.

What Ford gets from this partnership:

• Two Ford-branded EVs (likely a Puma-class subcompact crossover and Fiesta-class hatchback) designed by Ford for brand identity but engineered and manufactured by Renault.
• Access to Ampere’s proven cost base without bearing the platform development expense.
• Faster time-to-market: 2028 arrival versus 2030+ if Ford developed the architecture in-house.

What Renault gets:

• Additional scale for its Ampere platform, improving unit economics.
• Better utilization for ElectriCity plants that were built for higher volumes.
• Validation of Ampere as an EV platform supplier to third-party brands.

The VW complication: Ford already uses Volkswagen’s MEB platform for its Explorer and Capri EVs in Europe, built at Ford’s Cologne factory. The Ampere partnership doesn’t replace that arrangement. Instead, it adds a lower-cost option specifically for the small-car segment where MEB vehicles can’t hit the right price points.

Ford is now hedging across multiple partners: VW for mid-size EVs, Renault for affordable small cars, and its own platforms for trucks and performance vehicles.

The Nissan Question

The Ford partnership has a subplot worth watching: what does this mean for the Renault-Nissan alliance?

That relationship has been under strain since the Carlos Ghosn scandals shook the partnership’s governance. By 2025, Renault increasingly treats Ampere as a standalone entity capable of supplying any automaker, not just its traditional alliance partner.

Ford’s entry adds competition for influence over Renault’s EV roadmap. Industry speculation suggests Nissan could eventually license the same Ampere platforms for certain Europe-focused EVs, but nothing has been announced.

The emerging dynamic: Renault supplies platforms to Ford and potentially other brands. Nissan becomes one customer among many rather than the privileged partner it once was.

Policy Context: A Tale of Two Continents

This partnership is unfolding against radically different regulatory environments in Europe and the United States.

Europe: The EU’s CO₂ fleet standards create a regulatory imperative for affordable EVs. Targets tighten progressively through 2030, with a de facto ban on new ICE vehicle sales by 2035. Automakers face substantial fines for non-compliance. If Ford wants to keep selling cars in Europe, it needs vehicles that bring down its fleet average.

United States: The Trump administration moved in the opposite direction. The “Freedom Means Affordable Cars” initiative (announced December 2025) rolled back Biden-era fuel economy standards. The civil penalty for CAFE violations was set to $0, eliminating enforcement. The administration explicitly frames prior rules as an “illegal EV mandate.”

Ford’s response: build affordable EVs for Europe, not America. The company is hedging both regulatory environments simultaneously.

The 2028 Test

By the time the first Ford-Ampere EV reaches showrooms in early 2028, the competitive landscape will look different:

• Battery costs will have dropped another 20-30%.
• Chinese brands will have expanded their European presence, potentially with local manufacturing.
• EU tariffs on Chinese EV imports may have reshaped trade dynamics.

The question remains: can platform sharing close the efficiency gap with Chinese manufacturers?

Even with shared platforms, Western OEMs carry structural disadvantages. BYD produces over 3 million EVs annually with deeply integrated supply chains. Ford and Renault combined represent a fraction of that EV volume.

The Ford-Renault partnership is a pragmatic acknowledgment that legacy automakers can’t develop affordable EV platforms alone. But it’s ultimately a defensive play, not a breakthrough. The companies splitting the cost of competing may still find themselves losing ground to rivals who don’t need to share anything at all.