Renault-Nissan Alliance and Daimler AG announce JV plant in Mexico
The Renault-Nissan Alliance and Daimler AG are further strengthening their collaboration following the announcement of the construction of a new joint venture plant in Mexico. Scheduled to commence operation in 2017, the new plant will be operated by a 50:50 JV between the two companies and will be built in Augascalientes in the north-central region of Mexico.
Situated in the immediate vicinity of an existing Nissan plant in that area, the new JV plant will start off making Infiniti models in 2017 with Mercedes-Benz production scheduled to take off in 2018. At full capacity, the plant will have the ability to churn out an annual production volume of 300,000 vehicles.
According to Carlos Ghosn, Chairman and CEO of the Renault-Nissan Alliance, “Joint development of compact premium vehicles and joint production in Aguascalientes together represent one of the largest projects between the Renault-Nissan Alliance and Daimler. It also shows how our collaboration, which began in Europe, has become global in scope.”
Total investment in the plant’s construction is currently estimated at €1 billion, and by the time it hits full production capacity in 2021, the plant would have added 5,700 jobs to the Mexican economy and further boost Nissan’s economies of scale in the Mexican supply chain. Nissan’s existing plant in Aguascalientes already produces more than 850,000 vehicles per annum.
“In Aguascalientes, we will take our successful partnership to the next level by combining the skills of our two companies Daimler and Nissan in one production plant. Just over four years after the cooperation was founded, the decision for the new plant in Mexico is a major milestone,” said Dieter Zetsche, Chairman of the Board of Management of Daimler AG and Head of Mercedes-Benz Cars.
Since being announced in 2010, the collaboration between Daimler AG and the Renault-Nissan Alliance has grown from three Euro-focused ‘pillar projects’ to twelve major initiatives spanning across the globe. One of the most notable transfers of technology between the two companies manifested thus far is shared usage of the Mercedes-Benz M274 2.0-litre turbo engine being used in the all-new Infiniti Q50.
Just before announcing the Aguascalientes JV plant, the two partners had started joint production of the M274 engine in Infiniti’s Decherd plant in Tennessee, USA. Set to produce 250,000 engines a year, the Decherd plant will be supplying the M274 mills for use in both the Q50 and the all-new Mercedes C-Class W205.
Later this year, the Alliance and Daimler will start selling the next-generation smart and Twingo city cars, developed on a shared platform, the Twingo and the four-seater smart being produced at the Renault plant in Novo Mesto, Slovenia, the two-seater smart in Hambach, France.
KON
Pictures: Official Renault-Nissan and Daimler AG release
