Breaking: Daimler will provide gasoline and diesel engines Infiniti

Renault-Nissan Alliance and Daimler AG announced today a broad strategic cooperation which promises to enable both groups to already realize benefits quickly from a range of concrete projects as well as sharing of best practices.

As we said last week in this post, the two groups also announced an equity exchange that will give the Renault-Nissan Alliance a 3.1% stake in Daimler and Daimler a 3.1% in Renault and a 3.1% stake in Nissan. Regarding the highlights of the cooperation, the manufacturers will share the new architecture fo small vehicles: the next-generation Smart ForTwo and the next-generation Renault Twingo will be engineered on the basis of a jointly developed architecture.
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bfghemicuda - 4/7/2010 11:14:00 AM

+3 Boost

Dieters got that [I hooked another] look on his face.

91z4me - 4/7/2010 11:24:38 AM

+3 Boost

Interesting tie in. I can see where both parties can benefit and the stock exchange is rather small. This may work well.

ghosthunter - 4/7/2010 12:03:14 PM

+3 Boost

what? small gas engine? MB is pretty good with 5.5L and 6.0L engines, but their small gas engine never shines. i doubt infiniti will benefit much from this.

Willis - 4/7/2010 2:25:53 PM

+3 Boost

The smaller gas engines MB has in Europe are incredible. I rented a Mercedes C200 Kompressor there with one of their newer 4 cylinder engines and I thought it was a V6 because the engine was so smooth and quiet. Only at speeds of about 160 kph did the engine reveal its 4 cylinder nature but nowhere in the US can you pretty much drive that speed legally so it doesn't matter.

After that I also rented a Mercedes A150 and an Audi A4 2.0 TDI and both these small engines impressed me. Both were refined and quite agile, even the A150, which I expected to be slow.

upwards - 4/7/2010 8:44:17 PM

+1 Boost

MB
Four bangers or ok at best and if infinit wants to use them in luxury cars they will have a hard time trying to move them unlike MB who has the advantage of having a four point star on the hood and for some that's enough to buy the car if it where a 3 banger lol.

Agent63 - 4/8/2010 5:09:08 AM

+1 Boost

Guys, 4 bangers doesn't mean anything. Just because many economy brands use 4 cyl motors it doesn't mean it can't be refined for luxury makers as well. That's the problem with North America. We are so into big motors that we think its a luxury to have it. So a poorly built Vette is a luxury car because it has a big V8? or is an Audi A4 2.0T is an economy car?

The small motors from Daimler and Audi are great. I've had the pleasure to experience them when I was in Frankfurt. As smooth as a V6 on city and highways.

BozzorTheGreat - 4/8/2010 6:44:07 AM

+1 Boost

Just shows you: breaking new technical ground in the automotive sphere is becoming massive expensive even for big companies, so they do have to team up. Whilst small companies can continue to produce low volume, high spec and ultra high margin cars, the financial pain of making an car that meets govenrment laws/requirements, consumer expectations and does so at a competitive price, that is now becoming a very costly skill.

nguyenvuminh - 4/8/2010 10:08:05 PM

+1 Boost

Interesting comment from ghosthunter about MB smaller engines do not shine. I would think that Nissan and Renault, two companies more known for their small cars, would be in the best position to decide which engines their cars would benefit the most and decided to go with MB small engines. Just goes to show you, we're just car enthusiast who relies on our notion whereas the technical reality may be quite different from our thinking.