Renault-Nissan To Launch Modular Architecture For Low-Cost Cars
In India for the relaunched Datsun brand’s first car, the Go, CEO of the Renault-Nissan alliance, Carlos Ghosn, announced that Renault and Nissan will jointly develop a platform for low cost and ultra low cost cars aimed at India and other emerging markets, which Ghosn believes will make up 60% of the global automotive market by 2016. To do that, the alliance will spend another $5 billion on investments in their Indian operations over the next five years. Renault-Nissan is committed to using India as its global hub for emerging markets, developing the cars there as well as assembling and exporting them.
Renault-Nissan’s CMF Architecture
The new low cost cars will reach the market in 2015 and be engineered from the CMF-A platform, an iteration of the alliance’s recently announced Common Module Platform. The CMF-A platform will be used across the alliance at the Renault, Nissan and Datsun brands. Don’t expect a CMF-A based Infiniti, as the platform is engineered for low cost, not luxury. The variant of the CMF was developed in India itself. Speaking to The Hindu at an event in Chennai, Ghosn said
“We see India easily being in the top five markets for Renault and in the top ten markets for Nissan in future… The new platform was Indian designed, Indian engineered and made for Indians. This platform has been built ground up jointly by Renault and Nissan and it will be state-of-the-art and most innovative… We are breaking new ground with CMF-A to meet and exceed the high standards of consumers in the world’s fastest growing economies, particularly people buying a new car for the first time,.. Our frugal car will be at entry-level prices, if you understand what I mean. Our intention is to come out with a car that will be totally modern, Indian engineered and not have outdated technology, but let’s make it clear, we don’t want to compare ourselves to the Tata Nano, or benchmark against it.”
Much of the money for their investments in India will apparently come from the savings that Renault and Nissan are achieving through things like shared development costs. Christian Mardrus, Renault-Nissan managing director for logistics, said that the two companies together will save $4.57 billion (3.5 billion euros) in 2015 alone.
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This is a puff piece to support R-N world wide. They're trying to distance themselves from PSA by having the technologies, resources and plans similar to VW without having the money. It will be the same sort of deal that GM pulled with Congress when they came cap in hand and pushed the Volt. See what we're doing?! See these plans?! See what would be lost if we weren't supported? And it won't cost much at all because it's cheap! We CAN'T die!
The Nano is a no-go simply because it is TOO cheap. Not in price, but in specs. People upgrading from motorbikes to cars want their cars to feel... well... car-like. That's something the Maruti 800 and Alto do very well (despite being smaller than a shoebox), since they look and feel like real cars. The Maruti Alto has sold over two million units over the past decade. Maruti's Alto sales in India over the past year are bigger than the sales of entire brands in that market... either foreign or local... at 300k a year. The Swift and Dzire are both over 200k a year. That's the market Datsun is hoping to go for. Or should be hoping to go for. They won't hit Alto sales, but they'll be hoping to make a dent in Swift or Swift Dzire sales with the Go.