Ghosn: Renault-Nissan Alliance Will Outsell Toyota, VW This Year

CEO Carlos Ghosn predicts the expanding Renault-Nissan alliance will become the world’s top-volume car company this year.

Reaching that target would be possible mainly because the alliance added Mitsubishi Motors Corp. last October when Nissan bought a controlling 34% stake in the Japanese company. MMC sold some 934,000 vehicles in 2016.

The alliance also includes Russia’s largest carmaker, OAO AvtoVAZ, which was fully consolidated into Renault’s balance sheet last year. Car sales in Russia gained in April and May, suggesting recovery for a market that shrank from 2.94 million units in 2012 to 1.43 million units last year, according to the Moscow-based Assn. of European Businesses.

Whether the partnership will be able to outsell market leaders VW and Toyota in 2017 isn’t clear. But market analysts JATO Dynamics tell Automotive News the group is certainly likely to do so in the next few years.

JATO calculates that Renault-Nissan alliance sales in January-May totaled 3.02 million units. That compares with sales of 3.32 million for VW and 3.06 million for Toyota. But JATO notes that the partnership controls the largest share (12%) of the booming global market for SUV/crossover vehicles. The alliance also outsells its rivals in all-electric vehicles.