Ampere set to become the Dacia of the cheap EV world

We’ve all heard of Renault’s budget brand, Dacia, but you might not be familiar with the French maker’s new value-focused EV marque, Ampere, which is set to unveil its first-ever model tomorrow.

Pegged to be a cheap-as-chips electric city car to rival the likes of the new Citroen e-C3 and BYD Dolphin, Ampere’s first model is expected to be announced on Wednesday as part of the company’s capital markets day.

Other than potentially utilising technologies such as LFP (lithium ferro phosphate) batteries in order to keep costs low, Renault believes Ampere will be able to achieve rock-bottom prices by focusing entirely on EVs. If you’re not yet convinced, Renault’s partners, Nissan and Mitsubishi, are expected to become big investors in Ampere, which is set to be the first ‘affordable’ EV brand to come out of Europe.

While Renault is working on its own line-up of EVs such as the 4 crossover and 5 supermini, the Ampere city car will be built in Slovenia and is projected to go on sale by 2026, possibly undercutting the aforementioned Citroen e-C3’s bargain price tag of ‘under £23,000’.

This won’t be the only Ampere model, however; the brand has stated that it plans to unveil a line-up of six fully-electric models by the end of the decade. Such a roster would put Ampere in a good position to go head-to-head with other penny-pinching EV brands set to arrive on European shores from China, like Seres and BYD.