Mercedes, Nissan expand cooperation to build midsize pickup

FRANKFURT (Reuters) -- Daimler said it will expand its cooperation with strategic partner Nissan to develop a midsize pickup truck for Mercedes-Benz.

The Mercedes pickup will be built by the Renault-Nissan alliance at its plants in Spain and Argentina.

The pickup will target commercial and private customers and will share some of the underpinnings with an all-new Nissan NP300 truck, Daimler and Renault-Nissan said in a joint statement on Tuesday.

Daimler did not say if the pickup will be sold in the United States. "The primary target markets for the truck are Europe, Australia, South Africa and Latin America," the joint statement said.

"Entering the rapidly growing segment of midsize pickups is an important step in continuing our global growth path," Daimler CEO Dieter Zetsche said in the statement. "Thanks to our well-established partnership with the Renault-Nissan Alliance, we are able to drastically reduce the time and cost to enter this key segment."

The Mercedes 1-ton pickup truck will be built for Latin America at Renault's plant in Cordoba, Argentina, along with the Nissan NP300 and a Renault 1-ton truck.

The three trucks will also be built in the Nissan plant in Barcelona, Spain, for other markets, excluding North America, the statement said. The Barcelona plant will produce about 120,000 vehicles annually for the three partners, while the Cordoba plant will produce nearly 70,000 vehicles a year.

Production of the trucks at the two plants will start by the end of the decade.

Production of Renault’s 1-ton truck will begin in 2016 at Nissan’s plant in Cuernavaca, Mexico, the statement said. The 1-ton pickup will mark Renault’s second entry into the pickup segment after the launch of a half-ton pickup later this year.

Mercedes' U.S. unit will decide by the year end whether to sell the midsize pickup, Steve Cannon, CEO of Mercedes-Benz USA, said at the New York auto show last week.

IHS Automotive forecasts that the global compact pickup segment will grow to 2.83 million units in 2020 from 2.34 million last year. Compact pickups account for about 14 percent market share in Australia, 5 percent in Brazil, 18 percent in South Africa and 1 percent in Europe, IHS said.

Automotive News Europe contributed to this story