As part of the rebalancing of the Renault-Nissan alliance, the Japanese group announced that it plans to acquire up to 15% of Renault’s Ampere electric vehicle division. We remind you that there were years of serious misunderstandings in the alliance, especially because Nissan representatives said that they played too little a role in the alliance.

In 2022, Renault carried out a reorganization, creating several new divisions, including the electric car division Ampere, with which it has big ambitions for growth in the electric car market.

Nissan has now announced that it is investing in a stake in Ampere, and further investment could also come from another smaller alliance member, Mitsubishi Motors.

It will be recalled that Renault recently announced that it will reduce its stake in Nissan from 43% to 15%.

In November 2022, Groupe Renault detailed the third chapter of its restructuring plan, Renaulution, and split operations into five separate entities, one exclusively for electric vehicles. Ampere is a division that will include electric vehicles and software.

Plans for Ampere indicate a listing on the Euronext Paris stock exchange, which is expected no earlier than the second half of 2023 (depending on market conditions). Renault Group said it would retain a controlling stake and take advantage of the support of potential strategic investors (including Qualcomm Technologies, Inc.).

The Renault-Nissan alliance is 23 years old, but the last years have been the most difficult, because the two companies did not get along very well, although they have a complex industrial structure and a lot in common. Carlos Ghosn, a famous director who was arrested a few years ago, would like a merger between the two companies, but Nissan would not hear of such a thing.

Nissan executives believed that the Japanese group deserved a much more important role in the alliance, and there were also political differences, but also some caused by cultural differences between France and Japan.

Nissan had always had much higher sales than Renault, and the executives of the Japanese group felt that Nissan was not in the right position in the alliance and in the decision-making structure.

Not all of the alliance’s joint projects have been announced yet, but it is hoped that they could lead to cost savings of several billion euros by 2030.