The French automaker Renault will begin producing long-range attack drones under a contract with France’s General Directorate for Armaments, in partnership with the local company Turgis Gaillard.
The drone is capable of remaining airborne for about 24 hours, carrying roughly 1.5 tons of munitions and fuel, and cruising at a speed of 450 km/h. It is comparable to Israel Aerospace Industries’ Heron and Elbit’s Hermes 900. Turgis Gaillard is a small company that developed the drone in record time, with the goal of keeping it relatively inexpensive and providing France with its first domestically produced unmanned strike capability, freeing it from dependence on foreign drones. In the past, the French used Israeli drones, and today they rely on American ones.
According to reports in France, Renault will produce the AAROK drone at its factories in Le Mans and Cléon, under a contract that could reach a value of &1.2B over ten years. “A few months ago, the French Ministry of Defense approached us regarding a project to develop a French drone industry,” said Fabrice Cambolive, Renault’s Chief Growth Officer, in an interview with BFM TV. “They turned to us because of our industrial, manufacturing, and design expertise. This project is currently in progress.”
Renault does not have particular expertise in aviation, but it does have knowledge and experience in large-scale industrial manufacturing, which are currently lacking in Europe’s defense industries. NATO is concerned about Russia’s increasing production rate of weapons systems such as the Geran attack UAV, based on the Iranian Shahed, and is seeking to connect defense industries with civilian ones.
This will not be the first time the automotive industry has been mobilized for wartime production. Renault itself produced tanks during World War II. In the United States, Ford built bombers for the U.S. Air Force, and Buick produced tanks. In Germany, BMW manufactured bomber engines, and even the young Volkswagen built V-1 cruise missiles.