Renault, Nissan and Daimler have announced a three-way alliance to jointly develop new small cars, light commercial vans and engine technologies.
The deal, which is said to be worth Ôé¼2 billion, gives Daimler access to Renault-Nissan's small-car engine technology, which will assist in the manufacture of its Smart range and compact Mercedes-Benz models. In turn, Nissan will benefit from DaimlerÔÇÖs engines for its Infiniti premium range.
Renault and Daimler will also work together on the next generation of the Renault Twingo and Daimler's Smart fortwo model. Meanwhile, Renault and Mercedes will develop a new entry-level vehicle to be built from 2012 at Renault's Maubeuge plant in France.
Daimler will take a 3.1 per cent stake in both Renault and NissanÔÇöeach of whom will take a stake of 1.5 per cent in Daimler. RenaultÔÇÖs existing stake in Nissan will be diluted to 43 per cent.
Commenting on the deal, Dieter Zetsche, chairman of Daimler AG and head of Mercedes-Benz Cars, said: ÔÇ£Daimler and the Renault-Nissan Alliance are combining common interests to form a promising foundation for a successful, strategically sound cooperation that is based on a number of very concrete and attractive project cooperations.
ÔÇ£Our skills complement each other very well. Right away, we are strengthening our competitiveness in the small and compact car segment and are reducing our CO2 footprint ÔÇô both on a long-term basis. We know that we can make brand-typical products based on shared architectures. The individual brand identities will remain unaffected.ÔÇØ
Carlos Ghosn, chairman and CEO of the Renault-Nissan Alliance, added: ÔÇ£The Renault-Nissan Alliance knows how to work successfully in collaborative partnerships, and this experience is extremely valuable in todayÔÇÖs and even more tomorrowÔÇÖs global auto industry.
ÔÇ£This agreement will extend our strategic collaboration and create lasting value for the Renault-Nissan Alliance and Daimler as we work on broadening and strengthening our product offering, efficiently utilizing all available resources and developing the innovative technologies required in the coming decade.ÔÇØ
The two carmaking groups said they would seek ÔÇ£additional synergiesÔÇØ through joint purchasing and sharing of operational benchmarks and best practices. They also said they would explore co-operating on technologies relating to electric vehicles and their batteries.
The partnership is the latest in a series of consolidation and cooperation agreements between car makers looking for ways to boost maximise synergies and share the high development costs in new areas such as hybrid electric engines.
Ford has a 13 per cent stake in Mazda, and the two have a manufacturing joint venture, AutoAlliance International. Fiat took a 20 per cent stake in Chrysler as it left bankruptcy protection; and VW took a 20 per cent stake in Suzuki last year. A deal also exists between Peugeot Citroën and Mitsubishi to collaborate on electric vehicles.
According to industry analysts, over the next five years, the production of small cars will increase by around 50 per cent.
