LCV boss aims to leverage Renault-Nissan platforms

Ashwani Gupta was named head of the Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi alliances new cross-company light commercial vehicle business unit in 2017. He is responsible for vans and pickups across all three brands, and he is working to find synergies through common platforms and technologies, develop new markets such as China, and integrate Mitsubishi, the newest member of the alliance. He spoke with Automotive News Europe Correspondent Peter Sigal about what the unit has accomplished in the past year, and what the future holds for LCVs.

It has been a year since the alliance established a separate business unit for LCVs. What have you learned in that time?

We clearly saw the business grow for all three brands. We have confirmed a fourth common platform between Renault and Nissan. We have a common platform for the Renault Trafic and Nissan NV300, we have a common platform for the Master and NV400, we have a common platform for the Alaskan and Navara pickups, and now we will have a common platform for the Kangoo and NV200.

Any other big changes?

The second big achievement is the launch of the Alaskan from our Barcelona plant, which belongs to Nissan but makes the pickup for three brands, Nissan, Renault and Daimler (the X class). This is important in terms of cross development and cross marketing. The third achievement relates to China, where Renault has set up its joint venture with Jinbei Brilliance, and Nissan has started selling the Navara there. We will soon be launching a second frame-based Nissan SUV in China. Finally, we have started working on a future pickup platform with Renault, Nissan and Mitsubishi, now in the advance product planning stage. We have a long product planning cycle, so we start with market intelligence. That’s why if we do this exercise together it gives us better efficiency and effectiveness. We start talking about common products, common platforms, cross-manufacturing and cross-development.

What are the primary goals of the Jinbei joint venture?

There are three things we are going to do. No. 1 is we will focus on the current business and will expand the Jinbei brand. No. 2 is we will launch some upgrades of the Jinbei brand. No. 3 is we will be introducing Renault-branded vans in this joint venture. Our plan is to sell 150,000 vehicles annually by end of Renault’s Drive the Future plan in 2022.

Speaking of partnerships, Renault has an assembly agreement in Europe with Opel for the Vivaro and the Movano, among others. What is the future of such arrangements?

For us, the strategic alliance is Renault Nissan Mitsubishi, and this is our power. This brings the economy of scale and the capability of time to market. Our partnerships outside of the alliance are business partnerships. These are done based on win-win situations. We do development and manufacturing for Nissan and Daimler, we do it for Fiat, for Renault Trucks and for Opel. We respect the contracts, and we will continue with them while they are valid. Then, a decision will be taken based on business discussions between the two partners.

What are your projections for growth in the LCV market in Europe?

We expect that alliance LCV volumes will grow by 40 percent globally under our midterm plan [through 2022]. As far as Europe is concerned, the LCV business is very much related to how the economy is doing, but the total industry volume is seen as flat at 1.8 million vehicles annually.

Which global regions have the best potential for growth?

We are looking at balanced growth. Market by market, the makeup is very different. When we look at the United States, where Nissan has launched the new Titan, the total industry volume [TIV] for LCVs is 4.1 million, driven by the full-size pickup. Then you have China, which is also about 4.1 million TIV. Van sales are going to increase because of last-mile deliveries. Sales of frame-based SUVs and pickups are also increasing there. In Latin America, we clearly see that Brazil is starting to recover, and Argentina sales are also growing. In Southeast Asia, we are seeing the growth of pickups in Thailand, the Philippines, Malaysia and Australia. But in the end, we come to the conclusion that LCVs are a commodity that is driven by the world economy. I think every market is going to increase, but it’s a question of which market is going to increase in which segment.

How has the new Renault Alaskan pickup been received?

We are very satisfied, but we never disclose our sales targets. The Alaskan is a cherry on top for us. We are new to the market so we are taking our time to understand the customer and where we should position the truck. In Europe, we are taking time to understand the market and move step by step.

When will we see more integration with Mitsubishi the way we have with Renault and Nissan?

The question is how do you define integration. Are we working on businesses together with Mitsubishi? The answer is yes. If the question is have we achieved the same level as between Renault and Nissan, the answer is no, because Mitsubishi joined us last year and Renault-Nissan is in its 19th year. Today, we are exchanging best practices to benefit each of us. When it comes to Mitsubishi we have just started, but we are very much on the right track.

Looking ahead, what role will connectivity, driver assistance and autonomy play in future LCVs?

It's totally different than with passenger cars. In connectivity, we have launched Renault Easy Connect, which is an ecosystem of connected services. This brings greater efficiency to the fleet and business operations. This is needed for last-mile deliveries, when headquarters needs to understand the fleet and keep track of where it is going.

How are things different between LCVs and passenger cars?

For cars, you have heard the language of Level 1-2-3-4-5, but for LCVs, what we want to do first is deploy autonomous features from the viewpoint of driver safety. For example, 80 percent of Nissan NV300 vans are fitted with advanced emergency braking. Another example is a 360-degree camera. Our driver-assistance system called Nissan ProPilot (automatic steering, accelerating, and braking in single lanes) is already in more than 75,000 passenger cars, and we will have ProPilot in the next frame-based vehicles for Nissan and Renault.

What else is coming?

We also will have a last-mile autonomous delivery concept that involves the transportation of people as well as objects. In LCVs the first step will be the transportation of people, for the very simple reason that people can move themselves. If you are standing on the road, the van comes in front of you, the door opens automatically and you step inside by yourself. But when it comes to materials handling, the van comes, the door opens but the box remains on the road. The box cannot move on its own, so we need to find a technology that will move the box.

Do you think of yourself as the No. 1 global brand for LCVs at this point?

We are on the right track to achieve what we want to achieve. No. 1 is the consequence, it is not the objective. What is really important is that the alliance covered 77 percent of the [global LCV] market with 18 models in 2017. With Jinbei coming on board, we are close to 91 percent of the market, with 23 models. This is the strength of the alliance because we are complementary to each other in terms of products and we are complementary in terms of market. With this market coverage, we are very much on track to become the leading global player.