New Mitsubishi Triton and Nissan Navara will be twins

Nissan, Renault and Mitsubishi will re-badge new models – from utes to hatches.

As part of cost-cutting measures announced by the Nissan, Renault and Mitsubishi Alliance tonight, new model development budgets will be shaved by up to 40 per cent, with vehicles sharing not only platforms and mechanicals but also upper bodies.

This move could see the next-generation Nissan Navara and Mitsubishi Triton separated only by their badges and simple styling tweaks such as, for example, different headlight, bumper or even just grille designs.

The same will apply for the next generation of Nissan X-TRAIL, Mitsubishi Outlander and Renault Koleos.

In automotive parlance, this sort of shared production is called badge engineering. In its simplest form, it is only the badges stuck to the vehicles that differentiate them. Although there have been some successful applications of the strategy over the years, it has rarely worked.

Yet a move to a 21st Century take on badge engineering to improve efficiency and competitiveness is the key strategy takeout from the Renault Nissan Mitsubishi Alliance's new mid-term business model announced tonight (May 27).

Chairman of the Alliance Operating Board and Renault boss, Jean-Dominique Senard, called the strategy 'Leader/Follower'.

The same strategy will also be applied to key technologies within the brand’s vehicles such as powertrain development, connectivity and autonomous driving systems, plus purchasing and even production.

Although many aspects of the new strategy are still to be made completely transparent, Senard said that under the plan the Alliance will move from around eight passenger car platforms to four, split evenly between Renault and Nissan.

A and B-segment vehicles will be the responsibility of Renault, with Nissan taking the lead on C and D-segment plus an all-new EV platform.

Officially, Mitsubishi and Nissan are “studying” the future of their body-on-frame platform, which will underpin the next generation Navara and Triton.

That said, carsales has already reported statements from Nissan COO, Ashwani Gupta, indicating Mitsubishi is well advanced with the project.

Senard said the Alliance was moving to “a new collaboration model”.

“In 2019 common platforms represented 39 per cent of all the vehicles produced by the Alliance. With the launch of the [planned existing] new models using the common platforms, we will double this number by 2024,” Senard explained.

“However, this is not enough. The platform itself only requires one-third of the model investment. If we want to see a real impact on competitiveness, we need to push our standardisation further from platform to upper bodies – therefore covering two-thirds of the [cost of] model investment.”

Senard stated the potential additional savings were “tremendous”.

He continued: “To secure discipline in the segments, we will have one model vehicle, call it the leader car, and one sister vehicle, the follower car… All vehicles for all brands will be produced in the most competitive set-up including grouping all production if relevant.

“Compared to our current performance, this scheme will reduce by 40 per cent our [new] model investment [cost]. This is around 2 billion Euro in savings on the future renewal of our C-segment SUV models,” Senard stated.

That C-segment SUV is due 'post-2025', says Senard, but the company will see the appreciable cost savings as the vehicle is developed. For the avoidance of doubt, Senard’s timeline means the existing X-TRAIL/QASHQAI/Koleos architecture will soldier on until that time.

While the new Clio, Captur, JUKE already share their CMF-B platform, the Alliance says close to 50 per cent of its models will be developed and produced under the leader-follower scheme by 2025, including the next Triton and Navara.

The leader-follower scheme will extend from platforms and powertrains to all key technologies including autonomous driving (Nissan), electronic architecture (Renault), connectivity (Renault to lead Android-based platform and Nissan in China), CMF-A/B e-PowerTrain (Renault), CMF-EV e-PowerTrain (Nissan) and PHEV for C/D segment (Mitsubishi).

As part of the Alliance mid-term plans, the three partners will also execute a geographical ‘carve up’ of the globe, with the strongest in each region taking a ‘leader’ role.

This scheme seeks to reduce fixed and ‘backroom’ costs. In part, this is already underway in Australia, where Nissan, Mitsubishi and Renault share parts warehousing and distribution.

At this time it is not clear whether Nissan or Mitsubishi will be the top dog Down Under. It certainly will not be Renault.

Under the Alliance's new “reference regions” plan, Nissan will be the reference for China, North America and Japan; Renault for Europe, Russia, South America and North Africa; and Mitsubishi Motors for ASEAN and Oceania markets -- including Australia.

Closing the announcements, the Renault and Alliance chief categorically ruled out the much-discussed Renault-Nissan merger.

Tension between competing Nissan and Renault interests regarding the merger are believed by many to have brought about the spectacular downfall of former Renault and Nissan boss, Carlos Ghosn.

“There is no plan for a merger between our two companies,” Senard stated. “We don’t need a merger to be efficient.

“We are adding our efficiencies and sharing to get the best from both companies. I’m betting that in a few years we’ll be much more efficient and a model for the industry,” the Renault and Alliance boss stated.