The partnership between Nissan Motor Co Ltd and Renault SA — the Renault-Nissan Alliance — sold a record 8.3 million vehicles last year, making it No. 4 among global automakers as the pair reportedly boosted ties and cut costs, new data showed yesterday.
Nissan said it sold 5.1 million units globally last year to post a 3.3 percent rise from a year ago, while the French automaker earlier reported that it had sold 2.63 million vehicles in the same period.
The group sold a total of 8.3 million vehicles last year, including sales by Russian affiliate AvtoVAZ, putting it behind the top three automakers: Toyota Motor Corp, General Motors Co (GM) and Germany’s Volkswagen.
Photo: AFP
Last week, Toyota said it sold a record 9.98 million vehicles last year — its highest-ever annual sales volume — thanks to a weaker yen, as well as strong demand in the US and China, which is now the world’s biggest car market.
The Camry sedan and Prius hybrid car maker beat US-based GM, which sold 9.71 million cars last year, while Volkswagen logged annual sales of 9.5 million units.
The figures come after Japan’s Nikkei Shimbun reported that Nissan and Renault plan to boost their alliance by bringing together production, as well as research and development, in a bid to save about US$3.8 billion annually.
Despite their close links — Renault is the Japanese automaker’s biggest shareholder and they are both chaired by Carlos Ghosn — the pair have operated largely independently of each other, except on parts procurement and engine development.
Meanwhile, Honda Motor Co, which makes two of the three cars with the highest North American production levels, became a net US exporter for the first time last year, shipping more vehicles overseas than it brought in from Japan.
The Tokyo-based company exported 108,705 Honda and Acura cars and light trucks from US assembly plants last year, while imports from Japan totaled 88,537 units, it said in a statement yesterday. That enabled the carmaker to achieve its December 2012 goal to be a net auto exporter from North America within two years.
The first Japanese automaker to build cars in the US — starting at its Marysville, Ohio, plant in 1982 — has more auto production capacity in North America than in its home market. Last year, Marysville-produced Accords were the most-built passenger cars in both the US and North America, topping Toyota’s Camry, with Honda’s Civic compact ranking third.
Honda’s investment in North American factories totaled more than US$2.7 billion in the past three years, the company said. With the addition of a plant in Celaya, Mexico, Honda estimates that it will soon be able to build at least 1.92 million autos in the region.
“Achieving net exporter status is a natural result of our commitment and investment in the US and North America,” Tetsuo Iwamura, Honda’s executive vice president and North America chief executive officer, said in the statement.
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