Nissan's survival plan for Europe: SUVs and sharing with Renault

TOKYO -- Nissan is working on a plan to scale back its European business, focusing on SUVs and commercial vehicles as well as more effective sharing of products and investments with partner Renault, three sources told Reuters.

The strategy would see the automaker's plant in Sunderland, northeast England, switch permanently to two daily shifts from three, but become a key hub for SUVs.

It could also see the company's Barcelona factory in Spain close, putting around 3,000 jobs at risk, said the sources with knowledge of the plan, who declined to be named because they are not authorized to speak to the media. Nissan has told union leaders at the Barcelona plant that they will be informed about the factory's future before summer.

Nissan may build the Renault Kadjar and Captur SUVs at the Sunderland plant, the Financial Times reported on May 13. The Renault SUVs share the same underpinnings as the Nissan Qashqai and Juke, which are built in Sunderland.

The Europe strategy is part of a three-year global turnaround plan due to be unveiled on May 28.

Central to the proposal is a new way of working with alliance partner Renault that would see the two companies divide up areas of responsibility, with one becoming the "leader" and the other the "follower" in each.

The sources said Nissan's plan for Europe was presented to the company's board on Thursday by chief operating officer Ashwani Gupta, who they said was the leading advocate and key architect of the new leader-follower model.

They added many on the board, whose 12 members include Renault Chairman Jean-Dominique Senard, showed support for the plan, without giving details.

Nissan declined to comment. Renault did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Europe has long been a difficult market for automakers due to overcapacity, stiff competition and tight regulations. General Motors quit the region in 2017.

Europe accounts for only about one-tenth of Nissan's global business by volume and has "little prospects for growth and profitability," as one insider put it.

However, the company is keen to maintain a presence in the region, albeit a reduced one.

"We need to be in Europe to keep up with regulations and keep our technology competitive, even though we cannot go for exponential growth," one of the sources said.

Under the new working relationship with Renault, Nissan would take the lead in Europe on crossovers and SUVs, which the sources said would be available in gasoline engine, hybrid and full-electric versions.

It would operate as a "follower" in commercial vans and small city cars, using versions of vehicles produced by Renault.

The arrangement would allow the two partners to share technologies and manufacturing capacity, while keeping advanced technology and product development separate from each other to "keep our design, engineering and brands distinctive from each other," one of the sources said.

That is an attempt to resolve a major source of tension under former Renault-Nissan boss Carlos Ghosn, who sought to cut costs equally at the partners as well as merge new technology and product R&D. Many at Nissan viewed the move as an effort by Renault to ride free on what they believe are Nissan's superior engineering capabilities.

In terms of models, Nissan's main products in Europe would be narrowed to the Qashqai and the Juke built in Sunderland, plus the X-Trail SUV and the Ariya battery-electric crossover due to hit the market soon, shipped to Europe from Japan, the sources said.

Likely out would be the sporty Z and GT-R models, as well as the Navara pickup made in Barcelona, they said.

The product line would be supplemented by some of Renault-produced commercial vans and small cars to give the brand scale and provide dealers with enough vehicles.

The Sunderland factory has been operating below capacity and with a cloud over its future due to Britain's departure from the European Union.

One of the sources said the plan for the plant depended on the new trading relationship agreed between London and Brussels, but that Nissan expected the UK government to adopt supportive policies.

In forging the new relationship with Renault, Nissan's Gupta is adapting and expanding a business model he began developing when leading Renault's light commercial vehicles unit.

The Indian-born executive revived the unit and then created a leader/follower arrangement with Nissan's commercial vehicle business that saw Nissan building vans using Renault's vehicle underpinning technologies and Nissan providing Renault with technologies for pickups.

Renault and Nissan have long struggled to achieved the full potential of their alliance, due in part to tensions over areas of control.

Relations were then strained to almost breaking point in November 2018 when Ghosn, the alliance's long-standing leader, was arrested in Japan on financial misconduct charges, which he denies.

Nissan's sales and profits have been sliding ever since, and the hammer blow to the global car industry from the coronavirus epidemic has only added to the urgency for the company to come up with a strategy to secure its future.

Renault is also working on its own restructuring plan that will also be unveiled on May 28.