Daimler, parent company of Mercedes-Benz and Smart, will develop and build combustion engines together with the Chinese company Geely. This seems to end the cooperation with Renault in that area.
Daimler and Geely are no strangers to each other. Geely already has almost 10 percent share in Daimler and Smart is even half owned by the Chinese car giant. A jointly established joint venture is now responsible for Smart. However, the two go one step further: they will develop a completely new generation of combustion engines together. That message Reuters based on a statement from Daimler. The modular engine family is intended for hybrid powertrains. Further details about the power sources are not yet known, although it seems obvious that these are petrol engines.
In addition to joint development, the deal is also important in terms of distribution of production. Daimler wants to focus the production of powertrains in Europe more on electric cars. In the future, merces with fuel engines will probably usually have a Chinese engine in the nose, because that is where most of the engine production will take place. It is possible that only the production of larger blocks (such as for the heaviest AMG models) remains in Europe.
Incidentally, this probably also means that future Volvos will be supplied with these engines. After all, Geely is the parent company of Volvo and for the time being Volvo only seems to be developing its future electric motors itself. Geely is currently already developing combustion engines for compact Volvos, but it may be that the Daimler-Geely engines are used for the larger models.
Renault
Although the deal is still largely shrouded in mystery, it seems to end a partnership in this area with Renault. Daimler and Renault joined forces ten years ago to share platforms and engines. Although it recently turned out that the two still wanted to look at extending the partnership, it is very much the question on what scale there are still options left. In any case, the next Mercedes-Benz Citan will basically still be the new Renault Kangoo.