The Renault-Nissan alliance has established a new global light commercial vehicle division in order to increase sales.
The division, which will be known as the Renault-Nissan LCV Business Unit, will draw on synergies from Renault, Nissan, and Mitsubishi.
Ashwani Gupta will lead the unit as alliance senior vice president. He will report to Renault Nissan Alliance chairman and CEO Carlos Ghosn.
The alliance partners have noted that they will leverage complementary markets and products of one another, while maintaining each brand’s identity, sales and volume.
The new business unit is expected to use cross-development and cross-manufacturing, while reducing costs and integrating technology.
For several years now, the two companies have been producing vans and trucks through cross-production.
The Nissan NV300 van is built on the Renault Trafic platform; the Nissan NV400 van is built on the Renault Master platform; and the Renault Alaskan pickup is built on the Nissan Navara platform.
On the other hand, the new Renault-Nissan LCV Business Unit will also handle Nissan's body-on-frame SUVs, including the Nissan Armada and Nissan Patrol.
Ghosn said: "The combination of Renault, Nissan and the early collaboration with Mitsubishi Motors in a single Alliance LCV Business Unit will boost sales and deliver greater synergies.
"With this move, we plan to expand our market leadership by accelerating our performance in current and new, high-growth markets, based on each company's core products and market knowledge, and driven by customer needs."
Ashwani Gupta has been associated with Renault since 2006. As of 2014, he has been Renault’s Light Commercial Vehicle Division vice president, overseeing the automaker’s LCV business worldwide.
In 2016, Groupe Renault has sold 443,931 LCVs globally, including Avtovaz. The highest selling models include for the year include Kangoo with 118,200 units, Master with 91,900 units and Trafic with 81,600 units.
Nissan Motor has sold about 815,490 LCVs globally. The highest selling models include NP300 Navara with 196,257 units, Frontier with 102,497 units and NV200 with 54,118 units.
Mitsubishi Motors has sold 248,000 LCVs globally. The top-selling model was Triton/L200 with 125,000 units.
