Ghosn hints alliance with GM still on

FRANKFURT: Renault and Nissan are making progress in talks with General Motors about forming a three-way alliance but the outcome is still open, Carlos Ghosn said in a newspaper interview. “The ambience and the spirit of the work are fairly good.

It’s open. They are working together, spending a lot of time,” Ghosn, who is chief executive of both Renault and Nissan, told Automotive News of the teams working on a potential tie-up.

“They really have a lot of respect for their partners, which means you have the people who are the professionals in their area. I think they are all doing a very good job,” he added. “What I don’t know is, what are the conclusions? From the conclusions, you’re going to come to more serious deductions about, was it an objective thing? Was it twisted one way or the other?”

He declined comment whether General Motors was ready to accept the kind of sweeping alliance he has in mind, but pointed out that companies with a successful track record for alliances were more open to such deals than those with disappointments.

“I will tell you this. To make the alliance work between Renault and Nissan was an everyday task. This was not something where you pick a team from Renault and a team from Nissan and say: “OK, guys, how about you work together? Let’s meet in two months.”

“No. People who are different and come from different companies will not work together naturally. So, you’re going to have to massage the structures and the standards and the incentives and everything to make it happen. But then if you do this, the reward is really worth all the effort.”

Renault/Nissan and GM have given themselves until mid-October to determine whether a three-way alliance would make sense. Ghosn said he realised such a deal faced internal resistance from some people at GM who saw their interests at risk.

The deal had no chance unless it had support from the very top of GM, he said. “This is going to have to be friendly, associative, cooperative and performance-driven. That’s all. If they don’t want it, we’ll stop.”