Thursday, 8 April 2010 at 10:51, Reuters, Detroit
The hookup of Renault, Nissan and Daimler may eventually bring production sharing at US plants, but evidence of the alliance will not be immediately obvious to U.S. consumers, leaders of the companies said on Wednesday.
Dieter Zetsche, chief executive of Daimler, and Carlos Ghosn, chief executive of Renault and Nissan, indicated there are no plans to alter their U.S. dealerships as a result of the alliance announced in Japan and Europe earlier on Wednesday.
"As Nissan has a number of plants in the U.S. and so does Mercedes-Benz, we certainly can envision opportunities for some cross-sharing of existing capacities.
"This could apply to the light commercial vehicle segment, (or) to some engine manufacturing. We have no concrete plans yet," said Zetsche.
The alliance will foster another model of Smart cars, a four-seater which, like the current two-seat Smart Fortwo, will be assembled in France, Zetsche said.
The struggling Smart is owned by Daimler and its luxury brand Mercedes-Benz, and cars are sold exclusively in the US market at Penske Automotive Group dealerships.
About 15,000 Smart Fortwo models were sold in 2009 in the United States, down 40 percent from 2008.
Daimler's relation with Penske will not change.
"We have not been looking into any downstream, specifically sales, activity across-the-board, and not for Smart either," said Zetsche regarding Renault-Nissan in the United States.
"So our relationship (with Penske) is totally independent with what we are announcing today," said Zetsche.
As the alliance matures, there will likely be more cooperative projects between Renault-Nissan and Daimler, said Zetsche.
"We first have to deliver this and we have to make sure that all of the projects on which we are working are already being deployed in the organization. But potentially we should do more," said Zetsche.
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