CARS and light commercial vehicles made by Renault and Nissan will be using standardised engines and transmission units by 2010. But each company will have to make the most of individual underbonnet packages in the meantime as research work is shared between engineers at both companies

The manufacturers want a common range of engines sized between 1.0-litre and 4.0-litres. One of the first joint developments will be a 1.2-litre diesel engine and it has also been decided that Nissan will use Renault's small gearbox, while Renault makes use of Nissan's six-speed transmission from 2002.