Renault-Nissan Alliance sets up LCV business unit

The Renault-Nissan Alliance is creating a light commercial vehicle (LCV) business unit to expand its global presence in this growing segment.

By employing the full potential of Renault's van expertise and Nissan's truck know-how in key markets, the Alliance aims to grow its LCV sales worldwide. 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," said Alliance chairman and CEO Carlos Ghosn. "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 Unit will continue to maximise 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 to drive the LCV business
The Renault-Nissan LCV Business Unit will be led by Ashwani Gupta as Alliance senior vice-president. He will report to Carlos Ghosn.

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 LCV division since 2014, where he oversees the automaker's worldwide LCV business.

Gupta 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 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.  

Total LCV volume in 2016
In 2016, Groupe Renault sold 443,931 LCVs globally, including Avtovaz. The top-selling models in 2016 were Kangoo with 118,200 units, Master with 91,900 units and Trafic with 81,600 units.

Nissan Motor Co sold 815,490 LCVs globally. The top-selling models in 2016 were the NP300 Navara with 196,257 units, Frontier with 102,497 units and NV200 with 54,118 units.

Mitsubishi Motors Corp sold 248,000 LCVs globally. The top-selling model in 2016 was the Triton/L200 with 125,000 units.