Renault opened its Douai plant in 1970, and it has built 11 million vehicles across 22 models since. With Maubeuge and Ruitz, it is one of the three northern French sites that make up Renault ElectriCity, a single legal entity operational since 1 January 2022. Around 2,815 people worked there at the end of 2025.
Douai has deep roots in Renault’s small cars and people carriers. It built the original Renault 5 from 1974 to 1984, then the 14, 9, 11, 19 and the first Megane, and in 1996 it launched the Megane Scenic. Every generation of the Scenic has been built here since. Renault spent 550 million euros converting the plant to build electric cars on a flexible line that can take up to four platforms.
The Megane E-Tech arrived in 2021, followed in 2024 by the Scenic E-Tech, the Renault 5 and the Alpine A290. In 2025 Douai added two cars for Renault’s alliance partners, the Nissan Micra and the Mitsubishi Eclipse Cross. Renault says the plant built 100,000 Renault 5s in its first 15 months.
