Nissan Motor Co., Renault SA, and Mitsubishi Motors Corp. on Wednesday pledged to ramp up collaboration to increase their competitiveness, particularly in electric cars, after their alliance review was completed last month.

The collaboration will center around Ampere, Renault's new EV unit carved out from the French company in November, they said.

Nissan and Mitsubishi Motors have agreed to invest up to 800 million euros in Ampere as part of the rebalancing of the alliance with Renault, aiming to expand their EV sales in Europe.

By working closely with Renault, "we will complement our strategies to meet our own electrification targets," Nissan CEO Makoto Uchida said in an online press conference.

Renault CEO Luca de Meo stressed that by rebalancing their alliance, "we recreated trust among ourselves."

The all-solid-state battery Nissan is currently developing will be made available to the other alliance members, Jean-Dominique Senard, chairman of the alliance, said. It is expected to significantly increase EV's driving range.

Nissan and Renault in November equalized the stakes they hold in each other after a long negotiation to review the decades-old alliance, with Renault reducing its stake in the Japanese company from 43.4 percent to 15 percent while Nissan retained its 15 percent stake in the French company.

The negotiation was often stalled due to a conflict of opinions over how to handle Nissan's EV patents at Renault's new company.

As part of the deal, Nissan agreed to invest up to 600 million euros in Ampere. Mitsubishi Motors is also chipping in up to 200 million euros.

In its business strategy for Ampere unveiled in November, Renault targets annual sales of 1 million units in 2031. The French firm aims to list Ampere in the first half of 2024.

==Kyodo

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