Nissan Motor and Dongfeng Motor Group will sell off the heavy truck segment of their Chinese joint venture to Dongfeng’s state-owned parent, paving the way for local production of Renault and Infiniti cars as well as a possible new Dongfeng-Volvo truck tie-up, media reported on Monday (19 March).
Nissan’s passenger car business in the venture will remain intact, as will its light commercial truck production with Shanghai-listed Dongfeng Automobile, Reuters reported, citing an unsourced report by sina.com.
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Talk of a Dongfeng heavy truck venture with Volvo had been swirling around for years despite both sides having yet to provide any updates on the issue, the news agency noted.
The tieup with Volvo was intended to shore up Dongfeng’s heavy truck business as the unit within the venture with Nissan has been making Dongfeng-branded heavy trucks only, the reports said.
To get Nissan’s consent, Dongfeng would in turn back producing Nissan’s Infiniti luxury brand as well as Renault cars in its joint venture with the Japanese automaker.
Renault models are not yet built locally by any Chinese joint venture and sales of cars imported fully assembled have been lacklustre. French rival Citroen’s models have been sold in China for years and are built there in long-standing joint ventures.
A Nissan representative told Reuters the automaker had no information on the deal.
Under the Dongfeng-Nissan deal, Dongfeng Motor will take over the venture’s heavy truck unit from 1 July, the report said. It did not give a timetable for any Dongfeng-Volvo truck partnership or local production of Infiniti and Renault cars.
Volvo pulled out of an alliance with China National Heavy-Duty Truck Corp years ago due to sluggish sales, Reuters added.
