The Douai Renault factory is a car plant belonging to the Renault Group, opened in 1970 at

Douai Douai (, , ,; pcd, Doï; nl, Dowaai; formerly spelled Douay or Doway in English) is a city in the Nord département in northern France. It is a sub-prefecture of the department. Located on the river Scarpe some from Lille and from Arras, D ...

in the industrial basin of the Nord department, not far from Lille (Rijsel).

History

Construction of the plant received a go-ahead in 1968, with a formal announcement of the project coming a year later. Douai was chosen because it was well located at the heart of the industrial centre of gravity of the

EEC The European Economic Community (EEC) was a regional organization created by the Treaty of Rome of 1957,Today the largely rewritten treaty continues in force as the ''Treaty on the functioning of the European Union'', as renamed by the Lisb ...

with excellent road links to major industry and population centres. It was also in an area with a large pool of available workers, due to the running down of

coal mining Coal mining is the process of extracting coal from the ground. Coal is valued for its energy content and since the 1880s has been widely used to generate electricity. Steel and cement industries use coal as a fuel for extraction of iron from ...

in the area. The first car put into serial production at the plant was the

Renault 5 The Renault 5 is a four-passenger, three or five-door, front-engine, front-wheel drive hatchback supermini manufactured and marketed by the French automaker Renault over two generations: 1972–1985 (also called R5) and 1984–1996 (also called S ...

, initially in small batches, starting early in 1975. The principal production location for the little car was, and remained, at Flins, however. Towards the end of 1975 production started at Douai, in much larger batches, of the

Renault 14 The Renault 14 is a compact car produced by the French manufacturer Renault between 1976 and 1983. It was first shown in January 1976 with production beginning in June of that year. It was the first car to be produced in large volumes at the compa ...

, building up stock ahead of the launch of Renault's first head-on

Golf Golf is a club-and-ball sport in which players use various clubs to hit balls into a series of holes on a course in as few strokes as possible. Golf, unlike most ball games, cannot and does not use a standardized playing area, and coping wi ...

competitor in 1976. Volumes in 1976 were 325 Renault 14 and 50 R5's per diem. The plant has continued to specialise in the manufacture of cars in the

small family car The C-segment is the 3rd category of the European segments for passenger cars and is described as "medium cars". It is equivalent to the Euro NCAP "small family car" size class, and the compact car category in the United States. In 2011, the C- ...

segment. By 1977 the plant was employing 7,000 people. This was a period of rapid automation in car production, and as a new plant Douai was more highly automated than most. It was perhaps a reflection of the fact that all the jobs at the plant were then new jobs, that the robots were viewed with some affection by some members of the workforce. At the end of the body assembly shop much of the main welding together of the pressed panels was undertaken by a team of four "Unimate" robots christened, by their human colleagues, Theophile, Arsine, Marcel and Modeste. Visitors at this time were also impressed by the ample space in the plant available for further expansion. However, in 2008 Douai suffered a blow when production of mainstream

Renault Mégane The Renault Mégane () is a small family car produced by the French car manufacturer Renault for model year 1996, and was the successor to the Renault 19. The Mégane has been offered in three- and five-door hatchback, saloon, coupé, converti ...

model was concentrated on the

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plant: hitherto the two plants had assembled the model in parallel, but sales volumes no longer justified that arrangement. Douai retained the sporty low volume Mégane CC Coupé and Cabriolet.

Production

Historical production

The following Renault models have been manufactured at Douai: *

(1972–1985) *

(1976–1983) *

Renault 9 The Renault 9 and Renault 11 are small family cars produced by the French manufacturer Renault for model years 1981–1988 in saloon (Renault 9) and hatchback (Renault 11) configurations — both were styled by the French automobile designer, Rob ...

Renault 11 Eleven or 11 may refer to: *11 (number), the natural number following 10 and preceding 12 * one of the years 11 BC, AD 11, 1911, 2011, or any year ending in 11 Literature * ''Eleven'' (novel), a 2006 novel by British author David Llewellyn *''E ...

(1981–1989) *

Renault 19 The Renault 19 is a small family car that was produced by the French car manufacturer Renault between 1988 and 1996. In Turkey and in Argentina, production continued until 2000. The internal development code for the 19 was X53, with the five doo ...

(1988–1996) * Renault Mégane I (1996–2002) * Renault Scénic I (4X2 and RX4) (1996–2003) * Renault Mégane II (saloon and coupé) (2003–2009) * Renault Scénic II (2003–2009) * Renault Grand Scénic II (2003–2009) * Renault Scénic III (2009–2015) * Renault Grand Scénic III (2009–2015) *

Renault Talisman The Renault Talisman is a large family car manufactured by the French car manufacturer Renault since 2015. It replaced the Renault Laguna, as well as the larger Renault Latitude, for which no direct replacement was scheduled. It was produced b ...

(2015–2022) * Renault Scénic IV (2016–2022)

Current production

* Renault Espace V (2015–present)

Future production

* Renault 5 EV (2023)

References

{{Coord, 50, 21, 50, N, 3, 1, 40, E, region:FR_type:landmark, display=title Buildings and structures in Pas-de-Calais 1970 establishments in France Renault Motor vehicle assembly plants in France