Geely has replaced Nissan in the affections of Renault as the two companies collaborate on more projects, most recently agreeing to build cars together in Brazil.

“I see a lot of similarities in the way the two companies see the future of automotive,” Renault Group CEO Luca de Meo said on his company’s recent earnings call to investors. “It’s very natural. It's actually, I have to say, probably more natural than the different views of Renault and Nissan have had historically.”

Geely will take a stake in Renault’s Brazilian subsidiary with the goal of building cars at the French company’s Ayrton Senna Complex production plant in Curitiba and distributing its cars via the network of Renault dealers there.

The collaboration still has to be agreed by the Brazilian authorities, but once that happens, it will give a leg-up to Geely in a market that’s already being heavily targeted by Chinese car makers.

BYD was ninth in the Brazilian sales charts in February, according to figures from Bestsellingcarsblog.com, while Renault was sixth.

The Brazil deal follows the establishment last year of Horse, a 50:50 joint venture company that has taken control of Renault's and Geely's production of internal combustion engines. 

The new company has 17 engine plants globally supplying nine customers within Geely and Renault’s sphere of influence, including long-time Alliance partners Nissan and Mitsubishi and Geely-affiliated Volvo and Proton. 

Horse also recently announced a deal to supply a 1.0-litre engine to Brazilian start-up Lecar for a planned range-extender EV.

Also bearing fruit is the 2023 deal for Geely to buy a third of Renault Korea (formerly Renault Samsung) with a goal of jointly building cars in Korea based on Geely’s global CMA platform, also used by Volvo. 

Last year, Renault showed off the new Grand Koleos hybrid SUV, adapted from Geely’s Chinese-market Xingyue L.

De Meo praised its “relatively low development costs and good profit level” and said Renault planned 50,000 annually, partly boosted by exports to the Middle East and Latin America.

In December, it was announced that Geely-owned Polestar would start building its 4 EV at Renault Korea's Busan factory in the second half of 2025, neatly sidestepping punitive US tariffs on China-built EVs.

The relationship de Meo calls so natural brings together two companies that have become known for light-touch collaborations and speedy deal-making.

“We don't do PowerPoints or make announcements; we try to make the project work. That was the case for Korea, it was the case for Horse, so we will now focus on Brazil,” de Meo said, adding that “there will be other things coming” between Renault and Geely.

The relationship will allow both companies to patch up weaknesses in their global armour, hinted de Meo:  “We are working on ideas together. Probably Geely needs to go beyond China and we need to find scale in some operations.”

One idea mooted in the past is for Alpine to borrow platforms from Geely-owned Lotus, although the world is now a very different place. The first Alpine crossover, the A390, is based on the Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi Alliance's Ampr Medium EV platform.

The light-touch approach contrasts with the fractiousness that characterised the Alliance before it was artfully disengaged with Renault’s agreement in 2023 to place the bulk of its 43% shareholding in Nissan into a trust with the aim of selling whenever the deal is right.

“It's now an open relationship rather than a forced marriage,” de Meo said back then.

On the February earnings call, de Meo reassured investors that agreed projects with Nissan and Renault are still on track. One of those is Renault’s production of a new Nissan Micra EV on the Renault 5 platform, which Nissan said is due to start in the next 13 months. 

Also coming from Renault are two Mitsubishi SUVs for select European markets, one electric and one hybrid, likely to be based on the Scenic and Symbioz respectively.

De Meo hinted at further projects on the Alliance side, saying: “From an operational point of view, things continue to work pretty well."

Renault’s fortunes are now contrasting starkly with those of Nissan. Nissan has seen its profits crash and its future viability questioned after a tough couple of years. Renault on the other hand skipped around the financial precipice caused by Covid to post record revenues for 2024 of €56 billion (£47bn) and even held its profit margin at 7.6% in a tough year in which rivals stumbled.

With de Meo having revived the patient to full health, the investment case for Renault now is more dependent on thec company being “strategic savvy”, possibly including more Geely tie-ups, according to Philippe Houchois, an analyst at the bank Jefferies. He also warned of investments that diluted Renault stock without much financial upside – something Renault has a history of.

De Meo’s savvy now has to sharpen as the potential for the Geely relationship to get deeper is assessed. For example, Renault will need to upgrade or replace its largely Nissan-developed Ampr Medium EV platform, which underpins the Scenic and Megane. Geely’s SEA platform could be ideal, but that would require a much tighter partnership that could constrict Renault going forward.

“We are planning to do other products, but we try to stay agile flexible and have a relationship which is not as constraining we used to have in the past,” de Meo said. “This is, I think, more adapted to our times.”