After plummeting in 2009, registrations of light commercials are on the rise across Europe and North America, with many fresh products beginning to appear. Some of these will be sold globally, with expanding joint ventures squeezing out smaller players and allowing others to join the big league.
The most important news for the global and regional van markets of recent times was the announcement of a tie-up between the Renault-Nissan Alliance and Daimler.
In Europe, a series of OEM joint ventures presents a complex picture, though Mercedes-Benz Vans’ JVs are fairly straightforward. In brief, the Sprinter is built alongside its twin, the Volkswagen Crafter at two plants.
Future Dodge Ram vans will be sourced from Fiat Professional and Iveco.
In North America, the (imported) VW Crafter is sold only in Mexico, but Daimler Vans assembles the Sprinter from kits at its Freightliner plant at Ladson in South Carolina and retails it in all three NAFTA markets.
The current generation Sprinter has sold well since its US market launch in 2006 with Mercedes-Benz, Freightliner and Dodge badging. However, as Daimler continues to cut ties with its former subsidiary, future Dodge Ram vans will be sourced from Fiat Professional and Iveco.
A new Sprinter is due in Europe in 2013, so will Daimler team up with Volkswagen once more, again building the models at the Düsseldorf and Ludwigsfelde plants? Or perhaps the third generation series could be made alongside the Renault Master at the French OEM’s Batilly plant? This facility also manufactures the near-identical Opel-Vauxhall Movano.
The balance of power in Europe’s van segment may shift away from VW.
Whichever way Mercedes-Benz Vans turns for its next Sprinter (and smaller, front-drive Vito series), it would certainly make a lot of sense to get involved in Renault-Opel-Vauxhall joint ventures, which also includes certain vans for Nissan Europe. And were VW to lose its Crafter production partner, the balance of power in this segment would start to shift away from Europe’s traditional LCV number one.
Back in North America, Nissan recently revealed an impressive new entrant in the 1500, 2500 and 3500-series van market, the NV. To be built at its Canton plant in Mississippi, this huge vehicle suddenly makes the segment-leading Ford E-Series and Chevrolet Express/GMC Savana look their age: GM’s vans are eight years old now, while the big Ford was launched back in 1996.
Might we logically see a rebadged Nissan NV for Daimler Vans USA within a few years? It would make sense to move away from CKD Sprinter assembly, especially as the current model’s V6 diesel and gasoline engines, as well as its gearboxes are costly imports from Europe – Nissan builds its van’s engines at Decherd in Tennessee and has spare capacity.
As Ford intends to merge its Transit and E-Series/Econoline vans into one vehicle line, Europe has to wait another two years for a new Transit.
While GM is currently said to be readying itself for the threat of the NV by bringing forward the launch of Savana and Express replacements, there is new evidence that Ford is thinking the same thing. Witness its recent announcement that “98 percent” of the vehicles it sells in North America will have six-speed transmissions “by the end of 2012”.
The Ford E-Series, a big-volume product, can presently only be ordered with a five-speed auto. So either there is an expensive engineering change coming for a vehicle that has only a few years of production remaining, or else the replacement is being brought forward to 2011 or 2012.
Suppliers who don’t operate in North America should still take note of this project as Ford of Europe is merging its Transit replacement with the next E-Series/Econoline programme. The existing decade-old Transit must therefore remain in production for another two years, by which time big changes in the van markets will likely be taking place on both sides of the Atlantic.
The opinions expressed here are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the positions of Automotive World Ltd.
