The adoption of similar platforms among different automakers is not an unusual story. Now keeping the same phenomena in mind, Nissan-Renault have announced a new Common Modular Family (CMF) platform for their future vehicles. The CMF is an out of the ordinary approach in the architecture engineering that is based on the assembly of compatible big modules: engine bay, cockpit, front underbody, rear underbody and electrical/electronic layout. The company official said ‘CMF is not a platform, it can include several platforms. While a platform is a horizontal segmentation, a CMF is a cross-sector concept’.
With the development of CMF, both the automakers hope for 30-40% reduction in the development and product engineering costs of a new model and 20-30% cost saving in the parts sharing in the alliance. The CMF will aid both the automakers to assemble different models in different segments with the configuration of several modules in the same platform. The CMF will be adopted for compact cars as well as for large sized cars. Both the companies have plans to launch CMF for 14 vehicles (11 from Renault and 3 from Nissan).
The initial production can be boosted to 1.6 million CMF based vehicles for a year, however 10 countries are circled to start the CMF production by 2020 that will help both the automakers to generate great volumes across the world. The alliance partners announced that the compact car and the large car segment will get CMF first, then to be followed by other segments. Renault-Nissan’s CMF platform will make its debut on a Nissan vehicle by late 2013, featuring in the replacements of the Rogue, Qashqai and X-Trail. Renault will introduce its newly developed vehicle with the new platform in early 2014. It will be replacements for the Espace, Scénic and Laguna.
