By Adria Calatayud


France's Renault and Thales have partnered to produce a prototype of a tactical vehicle for land forces, as automakers gear up to collaborate with defense suppliers to play a larger role in weapons production.

The companies on Monday unveiled the 4 Troop, a multi-role civil vehicle equipped with data-processing capabilities, integrated systems to operate unmanned aerial and ground vehicles, and decision aids enabled by artificial intelligence.

The vehicle aims to make new capabilities available to the armed forces to support land-forces missions in France and overseas, Renault and Thales said. The companies said it would be possible to move the vehicle to series production for rapid deployment at optimum cost by combining the industrial strengths of the two companies.

Renault earlier this year said it would partner with French military contractor Turgis Gaillard to make drones, while Mercedes-Benz Group Chief Executive Ola Kaellenius said last month that the German automaker would be willing to move into defense production as long as it made business sense.


Write to Adria Calatayud at adria.calatayud@wsj.com


(END) Dow Jones Newswires

06-15-26 0147ET