Ghosn: Teaming up with Saturn wasn’t a smart Choice

During fall of 2009, Renault-Nissan CEO Carlos Ghosn was pondering requests to team up with two separate brands – Daimler’s Smart and General Motors’ Saturn. While, we already know who Ghosn picked to team up with, he says that it was never an “either/or” situation.

He said that working with Smart made sense and “Saturn was rejected because of very bad economics.”

Ghosn said that both plans were in front him at the same time and at the end, he rejected the idea of developing a new product line for Saturn after the brand’s departure from GM.

“There was no interference between the two projects,” he said. “It didn’t make sense for Renault. When you took a look at the bottom line on this project, it was mediocre.”

Daimler and Renault-Nissan announced their partnership earlier this month where they will both work effectively to develop new Smarts, electric-cars and shared powertrains across their lineup. Renault-Nissan Alliance will get a 3.1% stake in Daimler and Daimler will get a 3.1% stake in Renault and a 3.1% stake in Nissan.

– By: Stephen Calogera

Source: Automotive News (Subscription Required)