Carlos Ghosn, head of the Renault-Nissan Alliance, told the Automotive News that the companies will jointly develop two vehicle platforms that, shared between the two companies, will each provide the basis for more than 3 million vehicles by 2016.

Ghosn predicts that by that year the entire industry will have only five platforms that support that large of a volume and that by 2020, about three quarters of the alliance’s output will be based on just four platforms. In part by sharing platforms the alliance now expects to save 4.3 billion euros ($5.8 billion) by 2016, about $900 million more in cost reductions than originally anticipated. The other part of that savings will come from joint operations in manufacturing, logistics, r&d, purchasing and human resources.

“We are going to be really leveraging better than most of our competitors in size and scale,” Ghosn said to Automotive News. “If you have the right strategy and product, size matters. Size will really protect you from your competition.”

The first of those two platforms is the Common Module Family platform for C and D segment sedans, crossovers and SUVs.

Commenting on why the tie-up between Nissan and Renault has lasted so long when other relationships between automakers have faltered, Ghosn stressed that they deliberately fostered teamwork as opposed to a takeover mentality.

“After 15 years of working together, we are capable today of envisioning things that were practically impossible to execute five years ago,” Ghosn said. “People would have spent their time resisting and explaining why they cannot do it, instead of making it happen.”