Flexis is the new collaboration between two huge names in commercial vehicles – Renault Group and Volvo Group. It is a new electric light commercial vehicle platform which will have dedicated EV platforms for commercial vehicles. There’s also telematics and scope for smart cities and autonomy.
Flexis was launched as a 50:50 endeavour between Renault Group and Volvo Group in 2023, however in April 2024 it was announced that CMA CGM Group had acquired a 10% stake within Flexis SAS. CMA CGM (a French logistics company) will invest up to €120 million by 2026. The resulting structure will see Renault Group and Volvo Group both take a 45% stake in the new Flexis business.
Flexis headquarters are based in France. Flexis will also use existing Renault Group facilities to manufacturer the all-electric vans. These will be based on connected electronic platforms that will be produced in the Renault Group Sandouville plant in France.
Flexis is a joint venture between Renault Group and Volvo Group, but Flexis models will be sold under the umbrella of Renault (cars and vans) by Renault Group and in Renault Trucks dealership under the Volvo Group company.
Flexis will be a standalone brand in its own right. The new company is pitching itself as an entirely new product offering in the market that will operate concurrently with the current brand of Renault-made vans. That means that the existing Renault Master E-Tech, Renault Trafic E-Tech and Renault Kangoo E-Tech will not be affected by the arrival of Flexis. Renault’s current crop of vans – which are also sold on licence by Renault Trucks – will actually become competitors to the Flexis models. That’s despite some of the vans sharing the same production facility.
There’s no sign of a Flexis logo just yet, but the press conference was bathed in purple light. Could that be a hint for the colour scheme for the eventual Flexis logo? Only time will tell.
In fact, the vehicles themselves may not actually take the Flexis name. At the launch event, Renault Group CEO Luca de Meo reiterated that Flexis was currently only the name of the joint venture business, and not the hard and fast name for the finished van products.
"Flexis is the legal name of the thing, we will have to see if we take this as a commercial name or we change it," de Meo states.
The Flexis CEO is Philippe Divry a Volvo Group executive with a background in heavy trucks. Divry has formerly been MD of Volvo India and SVP of Truck Joint Ventures within Volvo Group. Most recently, Divry was senior vice president of group trucks strategy at Volvo before taking up the position of Flexis CEO.
Divry says: "This platform has been designed as being only electric, it’s not like you take an existing ICE vehicle and trying to electrify it. That gives you the ability to optimise it much more, make it shorter for the same cargo capacity. All those things come with having a native EV design. It can be expanded and make variants on it. It’s a robust skateboard with a lot of variants."
Krishnan Sundararajan holds the position of chief operating officer at Flexis having been project director of Renault's FlexEvan electric van project.
Flexis will make a range of electric vans using a skateboard platform. This will enable Flexis to offer a high degree of modularity. There are expected to be an initial line-up of up to three new models – if the teaser image is anything to go by – and there will be further derivatives with different body types to suit vocational needs, such as home delivery and parcel courier.
The vans will use an 800v architecture for faster charging and improved performance.
At launch, de Meo said: "“It’s a family of products. Lego-like customisation. [It will be a] really unique product which you will see doesn’t exist, designed for last mile delivery. It’s very tall and very short, the size of a Kangoo small van, the cargo capacity of a mid-van and it turns like a car because you don’t have an engine in the front."
The first vehicles from Flexis are expected to be in production by 2026.
Initially the intention is for Renault and Renault Truck dealers to sell the vans in their existing dealership. Volvo Group President and CEO Martin Lundstedt implied that Volvo Trucks would not play any part in the sales process (however, that may change in the future) while de Meo, who sits on the board of the Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi Alliance, said they will use their position in the alliance to offer a white label product to Nissan and other brands, in the same way that it currently does with its van range for Nissan and Mercedes.
"We are in discussion with Nissan, they already take Kangoo, Trafic and Master and we will maybe take advantage of that. We will also have a white label," de Meo says.
The creation of Flexis is estimated to create as many as 550 jobs in the next four years. Production resources will be shared with the existing Renault manufacturing facility but additional output will require more staff.
Flexis is also expected to run as an entirely independent division from the three owners.
