Is Nissan speeding up the process to separate from Renault?

According to reports, Nissan could be pushing a secret plan to separate from the Alliance partner, Renault, while the consequences of Carlos Ghosn’s downfall continue.

The Financial Times cites several sources reporting that senior executives are drawing up a contingency plan under which they would negotiate a complete split between the two brands in engineering and manufacturing departments. According to the reports, this has accelerated since Ghosn left office over financial misconduct charges in Japan at the end of last year.

Changes on Nissan’s board would also follow as a map of a possible split takes shape. Efforts have recently been made to improve relations on both sides, but the Financial Times reports that the partnership, which produces 10 million cars annually, has soured. Many executives at the Japanese firm believe that Renault is a drag on its success.

A split would probably result in both manufacturers forging partnerships elsewhere to stay competitive in the face of rising research and development costs and falling sales. It would come at the worst possible moment, when new alliances, such as Fiat Chrysler (with which Renault tried unsuccessfully to merge last year), PSA, Volkswagen and Ford, are forming lucrative relationships.

Would Nissan be speeding up the process of separation from Renault?

It is said that Renault’s chairman, Jean-Dominique Senard, will unveil several combined projects in the coming weeks to show that the Alliance is still on good terms, but people within Nissan claim that their efforts to present the unification misread the general mood of the workers.

A split would mark the end of almost two decades of cooperation. At a press conference after leaving Japan, Ghosn claimed that Nissan’s executives had coordinated with the Japanese government to arrange his arrest because they were unhappy with Renault’s more important voting rights over decisions within the Alliance, the creation of which he had led in 1999.

According to some sources, “Ghosn’s escape from Japan seems to be the catalyst for Nissan’s move to plot a potential split, which indicates that tensions between the Japanese company and Renault are far from over.” Another source has added that Nissan’s newly appointed CEO, Makoto Uchida, has been working closely with Senard to launch these joint projects.

But Uchida’s appointment as CEO of Nissan has failed to calm distrust toward Renault within the Japanese carmaker, since the divorce plan focused only on the engineering and technology part of its business. Japanese executives are reportedly investigating what Nissan is getting from the alliance and what would be needed to provide engineering and manufacturing independently. We will have to keep waiting to see how the possible separation of these two brands from the alliance finally ends, or whether they manage to merge with other groups in the sector.