The Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi alliance announced today that it has signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with China’s mobility giant Didi, also known as “China’s Uber”, to “explore future business cooperation on a new electric vehicle car-sharing program” in China.

The alliance is already producing electric cars and it is looking to add 12 more models in the next 5 years. They are looking to get into car sharing and ride-hailing.

As for Didi, it’s the other way around. They are already the latter, but they are looking to get into the former in a big way.

Didi already claims to be the ‘world’s largest EV fleet operator’ with 260,000 EVs and plans to reach a million by the end of the decade.

Now, they are exploring the possibility to join their efforts.

Chen Ting, General Manager for the Express Mobility Group of DiDi Chuxing, said,

“Strategic partnerships with the world’s leading industry players like Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi will enable us to pool our strengths and resources to meet diversified mobility demands and create an open, sharing-based transportation ecosystem, as we innovate vehicles for a future of ridesharing, AI technology and new energy.”

They are also talking about throwing autonomous driving into the mix for the holy grail of mobility; an autonomous electric ride-hailing service.

Ogi Redzic, senior vice president of Connected Vehicles and Mobility Services for Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi, added:

“The potential business and technology opportunities that we will explore with DiDi are quite promising. This cooperation fits with the Alliance expansion in vehicle electrification, autonomy, connectivity and new mobility services.”

The deal was announced two days after Nissan’s Chinese joint-venture increased its EV investment to launch ‘more than 20 models’ in the next 2 years.

It’s the latest example of companies in the industry consolidating their efforts to work through the massive changes that electrification and autonomous driving are bringing.

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