The Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi car alliance has tripled its planned investments in electric cars and plans to work together on several new models. Over the next five years, the three big car companies plan to spend more than €20 billion on electric cars. By 2030, the alliance wants to develop more than 30 new battery-powered vehicles based on five common platforms. Besides the 10 billion euros that the car group has already spent on electric cars, this is what they plan to do.
A Nissan spokesman told Reuters that he did not want to "comment on the speculation." Company officials from Renault and Mitsubishi did not respond to inquiries from the news agency. Instead, they want to work more together and develop "a common vision for electrification and connected mobility," says a source with knowledge of the plan from Reuters. They say that 90% of the electric cars the companies plan to make and sell by 2030 will come from the five joint platforms.
Renault and Nissan already have several electric cars on offer. People in Europe will buy the Renault Megane E-Tech Electric and Nissan Ariya electric cars this year. They both use a common platform for full-electric vehicles. Another type of split e-platform is used for simple and small electric cars in Asia and for light commercial vehicles with electric drives. The report says a fifth platform for small electric cars made together by the Franco-Japanese alliance.
According to an insider, Nissan plans to use the new CMFB-EV platform and other standard parts to make the Micra small electric car. This new platform is called CMFB-EV. Claims have been made that Renault is trying to make a similar electric car on the same platform. The companies hoped that working together would make small electric cars as cheap as cars with similar-sized engines that run on gas or diesel.
The plans also include having standard batteries. They want to standardize their production to cut their costs in half. The next-generation solid-state batteries that Nissan is working on are also expected to be shared with the alliance.
Renault and Nissan have been in an alliance for more than 20 years. Mitsubishi joined in 2016, and it was the first time Mitsubishi joined. As a result of more synergy, the companies wanted to work together more in the past to develop and use more technologies together. However, Car-maker alliance boss Carlos Ghosn, who was fired in 2018 and later accused of breaking trust, has not made the alliance more powerful.
In Europe, Renault is one of the first to make electric cars and one of the best suppliers in this field. Because of this, the French have not yet been able to follow up on their success with the Renault ZOE small electric car. Instead, the Renault Megane E-Tech Electric, released in 2022, makes the brand more competitive against more modern electric cars. There are also plans for more electric cars. At the start of the year, Renault said that it wanted to be the only electric car brand in Europe by 2030.
Nissan's LEAF small electric car has long been the best-selling electric car globally. Now, the Tesla Model 3 is the best-selling electric car globally, too. With the Ariya electric crossover SUV, Nissan wants to bring back electric cars that are more popular than other cars. So this year, Nissan wants to put more electric cars on the market.
It is unclear whether Renault and Nissan will also work together more closely with hybrid technology, which has become more common recently. There is still a lot of room for Mitsubishi to make concrete electric cars in the future.
