The Renault-Nissan Alliance and Japanese commercial vehicle manufacturer Mitsubishi Motors have announced a partnership to explore several new projects covering shared products, technologies and manufacturing capacity among the automakers.
It has been agreed to expand that the partnership between Nissan and Mitsubishi Motors could be expanded across the broader Renault-Nissan Alliance.
Currently, Nissan and Mitsubishi Motors have an existing joint-venture company called NMKV which was established in June 2011 for the purpose of co-developing a range of Kei cars for both brands.
As a part of this deal between Nissan and Mitsubishi Motors, it is expected that the existing NMKV joint-venture company will be extended to co-develop a new small-segment car including a specific electric version that can be sold on a global basis.
The new product will be based on a jointly-developed 'Kei car' platform of the type popular in the Japanese domestic market.
The Renault-Nissan Alliance and Mitsubishi Motors have also confirmed their plan to share technologies and product assets related to electric vehicles and latest-generation platforms. It is expected that two new sedan models would be launched under the Mitsubishi brand, based on vehicles from the Renault portfolio.
The first sedan will be in the full-size D-segment markets of the US and Canada and would be manufactured at the Renault-Samsung plant in Busan, South Korea. The second sedan model would compete in the global C-segment. The manufacturing location for this product is under discussion.
Renault-Nissan Alliance president and CEO Carlos Ghosn said that Nissan and Mitsubishi Motors have jointly benefited from several collaborations in the past, most recently the successful joint-venture on Kei cars in Japan.
"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," Ghosn added.
