The development of the Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi alliance will be based on three main support points — electrification, connectivity and autonomy. It’s being commented by the automotive giant, and they’re sharing new details about their vision for the near future, the development of their individual brand portfolio, and the technology innovations both future and current customers can look forward to.
“We believe our increasingly connected, intelligent, autonomous and green vehicles will help us address the mobility challenges of the future,” said Auggie Regitz, Senior Vice President, Alliance for Cars and Mobility. “We see a future where robotic vehicles will play an important role in the overall mobile ecosystem.”
In terms of electrification, the alliance boasts the successful introduction of the world’s first 100% electric mass model, the Nissan Leaf, which currently has over 270,000 units, its lightweight Nissan e-NV200 offering, with over 125,000 Renault EV sales. since 2011, including ZOE, Kangoo ZE, Fluence ZE, SM3 ZE and Twizy. The French brand is the leader in the European electric vehicle market with around 25% of the market and ZOE is the best selling electric vehicle in Europe.
Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi promises that by the end of 2022, 12 new alliance electric vehicles will go on sale, as 70% of them will be developed on a single platform, and 100% of the components of their power plants will be borrowed.
The alliance also noted that as a result of synergies and improved battery and propulsion efficiency, they expect the electric vehicle range to offer over 600 kilometers of autonomy by 2022. More efficient batteries will also help charge them more efficiently and quickly, and they are expected to be able to travel 230 kilometers in just 15 minutes on a charger at a current speed of 90 kilometers at a time.
The future of the alliance also includes plug-in hybrid models, for which it will rely on the expertise and state-of-the-art technology of Mitsubishi, which will be integrated into Renault and Nissan’s C and D segment models.
As for the future of autonomous driving, Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi commented that the company’s portfolio now includes many active systems for added safety, while teams are working on new ones to provide even more road safety. By 2022, the alliance will produce 40 cars with autonomous driving technologies.
Nissan currently offers a high-tech steering assistant for its Serena and X-TRAIL models, and will be available next year when the new generation Leaf is launched. The next steps will be taken next year, with the launch of road technologies, and in 2020 in urban environments. In 2022, the first fully autonomous representatives of the alliance will go on sale, which will not require intervention from the driver.
Through its Alliance Connected and Mobility Services (A-CMS) division, formed in 2016, the alliance promises accelerated connectivity integration across all of its brands. The division is currently working on the Alliance Connected Cloud service, which will enable future and current networking, as well as legacy models from the three companies.
Some of the connectivity benefits that alliance customers will be able to enjoy are remote diagnostics, trip planning and vehicle-to-vehicle information sharing, and by 2020 A-CMS will offer 35 different services.
