Mercedes and Renault's electric dreams

By Michael Taylor

March 2010

Smart is saved! Parent company Daimler has signed a deal with the Renault-Nissan alliance for a massive technology sharing agreement that ensures the future of the brand and covers millions of new cars every year.

The deal means Renault and Mercedes-Benz will share new cars, develop new engines and make electrically-powered commercial vans together.

Renault CEO Carlos Ghosn and Daimler head Dieter Zetchse have personally overseen the deal, which took a year and over 200 meetings to make happen. The agreement will see Renault and Daimler take control of three percent of each other’s shares.

The future of smart

The key priority is codenamed Project Edison, which is the umbrella name for a joint push to develop the all-new smart. The car will once again be rear-engined and rear-wheel drive, but will be developed in both short- and long-wheelbase versions to replace both the ForTwo and ForFour models.

A spokesman for Daimler said “We know we have had blind spots in our range that we needed to work on and smart was an obvious one, we have long said that the future of smart depended on finding a partner for it. “

Renault will develop sister cars from the new platform - the short wheelbase chassis will underpin the production version of the Twizy electric city car, and a future Nissan small car being developed to take on the Toyota iQ. The longer version will form the basis for the next Renault Twingo, meaning the car will move from its front-engined, front-wheel drive configuration.

New small engines on the menu

Besides the new small car, the firms will cooperate in developing a new family of efficient four-cylinder petrol engines to be used in 3.5 and 4.5 million smarts, Mercedes, Renaults and Nissans each year.

 “We were looking for higher volumes and, with the smart, we thought it best to tie it together all in one package to give us up to 4.5 million engines a year,” our Daimler source stated.

The units will range from 1.0- to 1.6 litres and will be modular in design, meaning a three-cylinder version can be made to power the next smart, or a range-extender engine for the next hybrid S-Class.

Renault and Nissan have good small diesel engines. But the deal would secure Mercedes units for larger Nissan and Infiniti models. Infiniti is keen to use the architecture from the next A- and B-Class models too, to help reduce its average carbon emissions and provide the firm with a rival to the MINI and Audi A1.

“If we are serious about making an impact in Europe – and we are – we will need small-car architecture and we will need diesel engines. This gives us a way to get them” one Infiniti spokesman insisted.

Commercial vehicles too
 


The final part of the plant sees Renault share its Kangoo small van architecture with Mercedes-Benz’s commercial division. This will include the electric version due to be tested with the French postal service later this year.