“Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi ramps up EV investments even further”

According to Reuters sources, Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi will present a new EV plan this week, on Thursday the 27th to be precise. It would say that more than 20 billion euros will be invested in joint EV development over the next five years. That should make a significant contribution to the alleged goal of having no less than 30 different electric models in the range by 2030, spread over five EV platforms.

Those five, that’s an interesting one. The most current and, for the time being, the most important EV platform is of course the CMF-EV base that can be found under the Nissan Ariya and Renault Mégane E-Tech Electric. The simple, affordable basis of the Dacia Spring (and its Chinese brothers, among others) is another. Reuters also has two platforms under development for Japanese kei cars and light commercial vehicles, respectively.

Electric Micro

The fifth EV platform would then be developed primarily with a view to the European market. Renault would hold sway over the development of a CMFB-EV base that could be used for, among other things, an electric Nissan Micra, which should appear around the mid-20s. The result can then be guessed, because of course an electric Clio-like can be easily realized. It is certainly not inconceivable that the Zoe and the Clio will be merged into one model, although we are speculating ourselves.

One of the goals of all this would be to make EVs as affordable as traditionally powered cars of the same size, insiders say. The alliance hopes to achieve this by simply being an alliance, i.e. by spreading development and production costs over several brands. Renault has already announced that it wants to be a pure EV brand in Europe from 2030, but that promise does not yet apply to the rest of the world.

Next Thursday we will know if the Reuters sources were right.