- In late 2016, the Le Mans plant is to start making chassis components for the next-generation Nissan Micra. This program will bring an increase of around 8% in the plant workload, and draw an investment budget totalling €7 million.
- The Le Mans plant will meet all the Nissan Micra chassis needs for the Renault Flins plant (near Paris), which will manufacture the new Micra from 2016 onwards, with an expected output of 132,000 vehicles per year. Thus Renault will be building the whole chassis for Micra in France, and assembling the car in France as well.
- Nissan’s decision to have the new Micra chassis made at Renault’s Le Mans plant follows the competitive performance agreement of 13 March 2013, which enabled the Renault Le Mans plant to successfully challenge rival production facilities as regards fulfilment of Nissan’s performance demands.
A year and a half after Renault and the trade unions signed the competitive performance agreement, Renault is forging ahead and meeting its commitments, including that of “maintaining or developing business at its French manufacturing sites”.
Production of chassis components for the new Micra will boost the workload by around 8% (full-year) for Renault’s Le Mans plant. Volume production is scheduled to start in late 2016, with production output, estimated at 132,000 vehicles (full-year) going to the Renault Flins assembly plant.
The program draws site investment of €7 million, on new machinery that goes a long way to securing sustained plant business in the future.
In announcing phase two of Renault’s Drive the Change in February 2014, Carlos Ghosn, president of the Renault-Nissan Alliance, emphasized the need to improve the performance of both partner companies, and one of the ways this was to be achieved was by developing cross-manufacturing, with one partner making vehicles or powertrains for the other. Just months after the announcement, Alliance synergies are stepping up; the Micra chassis programme for Le Mans marks a major step forward in Alliance cross-manufacturing.
