- Move expected to expand light commercial vehicle market leadership under a single business unit and boost sales by unleashing the full potential of Renault’s van expertise and Nissan’s truck know-how in key markets.
- Alliance partners to create more synergies by having one business unit, while ensuring brand differentiation, maximizing cross-development and cross-manufacturing, technology sharing and cost reduction.
PARIS (March 14, 2017) — The Renault-Nissan Alliance is creating a light commercial vehicle business unit to expand its global presence in this growing segment.
By unleashing the full potential of Renault’s van expertise and Nissan’s truck know-how in key markets, the Alliance intends to grow its light commercial vehicle sales worldwide. In the spirit of the Alliance, partners will leverage complementary markets and products while maintaining their own brand identity, sales and revenue.
“The combination of Renault, Nissan and the early collaboration with Mitsubishi Motors in a single Alliance LCV Business Unit will boost sales and deliver greater synergies,” Alliance Chairman and CEO Carlos Ghosn said. “With this move, we plan to expand our market leadership by accelerating our performance in current and new, high-growth markets, based on each company’s core products and market knowledge, and driven by customer needs.”
The Renault-Nissan LCV Business Unit will be led by Ashwani Gupta as Alliance senior vice president. He will report to Carlos Ghosn.
The Unit will continue to maximize cross-development and cross-manufacturing and is expected to deliver further synergies in costs and technology. Renault and Nissan have established cross-production of vans and trucks over the last several years; for example, the Nissan NV300 van is built on the Renault Trafic platform; the Nissan NV400 van is built on the Renault Master platform; and the Renault Alaskan pickup is built on the Nissan Navara platform. The new Renault-Nissan LCV Business Unit will also handle Nissan’s body-on-frame SUVs, including the Nissan Armada and Nissan Patrol.
Ashwani Gupta
Born in Dehradun, India, Ashwani Gupta graduated from Jawaharlal Nehru Engineering College, India, and obtained a diploma from INSEAD Business School in France. He has been vice president of Renault’s Light Commercial Vehicle Division since 2014, where he oversees the automaker’s worldwide LCV business. He joined Renault in 2006 as general manager of purchasing at Renault India in Mumbai. In 2008, he moved to the Renault Nissan Purchasing Organization in Paris as global supplier account manager for braking systems. He joined Renault Nissan B.V. in 2009 as deputy general manager, global purchasing. In 2011, Gupta was appointed global program director for Datsun programs at Nissan Motor Co., Ltd. in Japan, where he led the product development to launch in India, Russia, Indonesia and South Africa. He started his career in 1992 in engineering and purchasing in the private sector and later moved to management positions in the automotive industry.
