Nissan, Renault and Mitsubishi to Combine Forces

Nissan, Renault and Mitsubishi are working on a new platform, which will be used for their electric vehicles soon, reports Nikkei.

This has been done to reduce CO2 emissions as well as improve the fuel efficiency of their cars and to produce electric vehicles for the masses. In addition, electric vehicles sales continue to rise at a slow pace and carmakers are struggling to fund the vehicle development cost, which is higher than conventional vehicles.

Platform-sharing can help save huge amounts of money for all carmakers, along with reducing the delivery-to-market time due to combined development.

Another factor that made this move expected is that in May, 2016, Nissan took control over Mitsubishi Motors, which meant it was only a matter of time before we would see technology-sharing taking place.

The trio companies will share components and parts like motor, inverter and battery that will help in reducing the overall cost of the vehicle by up to 20 percent. As a result, this will make the electric cars’ price closer to the lower-priced petrol vehicles.

The joint electric car platform will be first used in the second generation Nissan Leaf electric car, for which the company will use a redesigned and less-expensive chassis, which will also be used by the other two carmakers. The upcoming Nissan Leaf is likely to go on sale in 2018 in international markets.

Nissan, Mitsubishi and Renault decided to take this step in order to compete with Volkswagen and Toyota, who are also planning to produce electric vehicles in order to reduce emissions and improve fuel economy in order to meet upcoming stringent norms.

Instead of developing different chassis for different cars, developing one platform significantly lowers the cost and time. Hence, it wouldn’t be surprising to see more carmakers joining hands for co-development and technology-sharing.