Europe’s carmakers are bracing themselves for a sharp downturn later this year after Renault on Wednesday cut its expectations for sales growth in 2008 and raised doubts about its ability to meet aggressive targets for 2009.

France’s second-largest car group on Wednesday gave substance to gloomy comments last weekend from chief executive Carlos Ghosn with a warning that its expectations of a more than 10 per cent increase in sales this year now looked unrealistic.