Chennai – Think global, design local. That’s the new mantra echoing through Renault India’s freshly minted Design Centre in Chennai, as the French carmaker kicks off its “renault. rethink” transformation strategy with a cocktail of modern minimalism, cultural maximalism, and an LED wall big enough to qualify as a drive-in theatre.
The new facility, Renault’s largest design centre outside France, isn’t just a building – it’s the brand’s architectural mic drop in India. Blending European sleekness with Indian soul, the design studio is built on the idea of Tactile Confluence — a fancy way of saying “Paris meets Pondicherry.”
But wait, there’s more style where that came from. The studio houses VR labs, a next-gen visualization suite, and something called “WE/ME Zones” — which, depending on the time of day, could be for brainstorming or just quietly questioning your career choices over chai.
Inaugurating this bold creative leap was Laurens van den Acker, Renault’s Chief Design Officer, who summed it up with a poetic punch: “India is unique, driven, and bursting with ideas. Having a local design hub is not just important — it’s inevitable.”
Enter: renault. rethink Sculpture – Because Why Stop at Cars?
Parked proudly in the middle of all the innovation is the renault. rethink High-Tech Sculpture — part artwork, part Transformers audition. It’s a glowing, glitchy, futuristic mass of angles that Renault claims represents “India’s energy in motion.” We’re not sure if it’s a sculpture or a concept car in disguise, but it definitely screams “Please Instagram me.”
The fragmented form, inspired by glitch aesthetics and digital-era art, is a bold statement: Renault isn’t just here to sell cars — it’s here to redefine design, celebrate imperfection, and possibly launch an EDM visualizer on the side.
Renault’s Strategic U-Turn: From “Make in India” to “Dream in India”
This move is no design-daydream. With 90% localisation, a planned 100% takeover of its manufacturing plant, and now this design studio, Renault is going all in. As Venkatram Mamillapalle, CEO of Renault India put it, “We are the most Indian of European carmakers” — which is possibly the most poetic compliment ever given in a corporate boardroom.
Oh, and Renault made €4.3 billion in operating profit last year. So clearly, this rethink has some serious horsepower behind it.
What This Really Means
In simple terms? Renault has stopped just shipping cars to India. Now it wants to think, dream, and doodle here too. With thousands of engineers in Chennai, a new design epicentre, and a bold philosophy that sees imperfection as inspiration, Renault is turning its gameplan into a design plan.
And if that glowing sculpture is anything to go by — we’d say, India’s auto scene just got a lot more… illuminated.
