RobertRyan wrote:
tatest wrote:
Renault once dominated the market in Europe for C platforms, until Fiat upgraded the Ducato in 2007 to 3rd generation that they are currently selling. 2004-2008 there were a lot of old type C's running around in France and Spain on 2nd generation Master chassis, but after 2008 all the new ones were on Transit or Ducato. It took Renault until 2010 to come back with a 3rd generation of the Master van.
French RV magazines in early 2010 were predicting a recovery of market share for Renault, at least for French manufacturers who had been using the PSA clone of the Ducato. I haven't seen any sales figures, however, and my 2013 and 2014 trips, which were in Eastern Europe, I was still seeing all Ducato, mostly Italian and German RV brands.
They certainly have done that, building Nissan, Opel, Vauxhall and their own Renault Vans. Suprised me. Fiat has the Ducato and the Heavy Van, the IVECO. Most European builders go for the under 6.5 tonne classes. Only Fiat has gone for a 7 tonne Van, the rest including Renault, offer light trucks instead, although their trucks are,owned by Volvo
Note, in most of Western Europe, the RV target weight is 3.5 metric tons, 3500 kg. Beyond that, owners, and more importantly rental customers, start running into draconian licensing and road use constrictions, as well as higher tolls and taxes. It is a different world. For most states in the U.S. the "critical" weight limits for taxes and operator qualification are higher, variously seven tons, ten tons, and thirteen tons (we have 50 different jurisdictions) . We even have issues in the range of 4 to 5 tons, as our Department of Transportation and our Environmental Protection Agency quibble the boundaries of their two separate classification systems in the four to five ton range.
I suspect that classifications like this are at the Commonwealth level, but in the U.S. the tax and licensing issues are state by state, no more harmonized than they would be in a Europe with less than 100% EU membership.
