Industry giants Renault-Nissan and Daimler are already tied in various product alliances, which include the sharing of everything from whole vehicle platforms to manufacturing facilities. At last week’s 2012 Paris Auto Show, the heads of both companies, Carlos Ghosn of Renault-Nissan and Dieter Zetsche of Daimler announced further cooperation plans between their respective companies.

That further cooperation will include the production of a Mercedes-Benz automatic transmission at a plant in Mexico for use in Nissan and Infiniti vehicles, as well as the development of a new four-cylinder engine to be used in models across the Daimler, Renault and Nissan brands.

The new automatic transmission has been developed by Mercedes-Benz and will be licensed to Nissan, which will call on its subsidiary Jatco to manufacture the units at a plant in Mexico. The new transmission will feature engine stop-start and shift-by-wire technologies.

There’s been no mention of which Nissan and Infiniti models the advanced automatic transmission will be used in, though it has been confirmed that it will be available from 2016 onwards.

As for the new four-cylinder engine, it has been confirmed to feature direct-injection and turbocharging technologies. It will be a compact unit, suggesting it will feature in the new Smart ForTwo and ForFour models from Daimler and the next-generation Renault Twingo.

It’s not clear which Nissan model will utilize the engine, though it’s possible it will be used in the next-generation Nissan Micra minicar. It's also possible that a more powerful version of this engine will be manufactured by Nissan in the U.S. for use in several Infiniti, Nissan and Mercedes-Benz models. 

On top of these new projects, as well as the previous projects announced in 2010, Ghosn and Zetsche also confirmed their respective companies are moving forward with discussions on fuel cell vehicle powertrains, as well as working on a cross-supply program for battery and powertrain components of zero-emission versions of their small cars.