Nissan and Daimler ditch a key project
The move could hit efficiency and profits at their new, shared Mexican factory
Paris — Nissan is halting joint development of luxury cars with Daimler’s Mercedes-Benz, sources close to the companies told Reuters, suspending a key project in their seven-year partnership and potentially hitting profitability at a new shared factory in Mexico. Nissan decided in October its premium Infiniti brand would not use "MFA2", an upgraded Daimler car platform that the companies have jointly funded, in part because Infiniti was not performing well enough to absorb Mercedes technology costs, the sources said. "It wasn’t possible to close a deal on the basis of MFA2," said one of the people. "The targets set by Infiniti were too difficult to achieve." The move could reduce efficiency at a $1bn shared factory opening this year in Aguascalientes, Mexico, where the companies had planned to use the same compact car architecture to cut complexity and production costs, two of the sources said. It could also ultimately force Nissan to write down part of a £250m ($306m) investment at...
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