The all-new Renault Twingo, Smart Fortwo and Smart Forfour launch this autumn to represent the first vehicles fully co-developed by Daimler and Renault-Nissan from scratch.

The city cars are built on a jointly developed rear-wheel-drive architecture which involved teams from both sides working closely together these last four years.

Renault-Nissan and Daimler launched their partnership in 2010. The scope of the original collaboration in 2010 was limited to three projects primarily in Europe. The combined portfolio shared between Renault-Nissan and Daimler has since quadrupled to 12 projects in Europe, Asia and North America.

Renault-Nissan CEO and chairman, Carlos Ghosn, said: "The global scale of our projects ensures that this collaboration will continue to grow, and we expect to remain partners for the long run,

"This partnership has accelerated the time-to-market for significant vehicle launches and has been an obvious strategic advantage for Renault and Nissan. We remain confident about our relationship for the foreseeable future."

Chairman of the Board of Management of Daimler AG and head of Mercedes-Benz Cars, Dr. Dieter Zetsche, said: "Since its start in 2010, this cooperation has delivered what it has promised, and even more. And that's how we will continue to work together in the future - with joint projects that establish a win-win situation for all partners involved and create value for our customers worldwide. This is definitely a track record to be continued."

The Renault Twingo went on sale in Europe in September, while the Smart Fortwo and Smart Forfour will go on sale in November.

Nissan and Daimler also plan to jointly develop premium compact vehicles in Mexico with construction of a jointly-owned facility in Aguascalientes starting in 2015 - Production will begin in 2017 with Infiniti models. The production of Mercedes-Benz vehicles will follow in 2018. When fully ramped up, the Mexico facility will have production capacity of 300,000 units per year.

The premium compact vehicles will also be produced at other Daimler and Nissan plants around the world, including Europe and China.