The Renault-Nissan Alliance and Mitsubishi Motors Corporation have announced plans to develop shared products, technologies and manufacturing capacity, as the existing strategic cooperation between Nissan and Mitsubishi will be expanded across the broader Renault-Nissan Alliance.
Nissan and Mitsubishi’s existing NMKV joint-venture company will be extended to co-develop a new small-segment car including an electric version that can be sold globally. The basis for this new model will be the jointly-developed “Kei car” platform from the Japanese domestic market. The first models based on the platform – the Nissan Dayz and Mitsubishi eK wagon – went on sale in Japan this year.
Renault-Nissan and Mitsubishi will also share “technologies and product assets related to electric vehicles and latest-generation platforms”. The first of these will be two Mitsubishi sedans based on Renault vehicles.
The first sedan will compete in the full-size D-segment markets of the United States and Canada and will be built at the Renault-Samsung plant in Busan, South Korea. No further details were offered about this model, but it’s safe to say it will use a Renault Samsung platform, just like the Renault Latitude and Renault Samsung SM5.
The second sedan model will be a global C-segment car for which the manufacturing location has not been yet decided. We can only speculate that the platform used will be from the Renault Samsung SM3 model, which also underpins the European market Renault Fluence.
“I welcome the direction being taken towards this broader cooperation, creating new opportunities for Renault in addition to further leveraging the productive relationship between Nissan and Mitsubishi Motors,” said president and CEO of the Renault-Nissan Alliance, Carlos Ghosn.
By Dan Mihalascu
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