Nissan + Honda + maybe Mitsu? merge into the 3rd largest automotive manufacture

[dark0821]

I am sure everyone is aware, but as a noob, I don't know shit, so I want people with way more insight and knowlege to discuss hahaha

But also remember we will smirk and smack talk when we see a RSX with a ralliart banner and a GTR badge... lawl... maybe they are just from the future~~

Pretty sure a money losing halo car will be the last on their agenda... but imagine the 3 performance teams working together lololol one can dream~

[trollface]

Japanese Govt won't let Nissan fail. Prob made one of the big two bail them out.

Civic GTR confirmed.

[Traum]

Originally Posted by trollface

Japanese Govt won't let Nissan fail. Prob made one of the big two bail them out.

According to different news media, the Japanese gov almost certainly had a hand in bringing Nihon together. Foxconn had been trying to get into the EV space for a few years without much success, and Nissan's imminent failure represented an excellent opportunity for them to gain a decent foothold into the space at pennies on the dollar. But the automotive sector remains one of Japan's biggest economic strengths in the world economy, and the Nippon gov didn't really want their 3rd biggest auto manufacturer getting scooped up by foreign ownership (again?), so the rumour mill was strong that the gov applied some degree of encouragement / "encouragement" to get Honda to save Nissan.

Apparently, except for Honda and Nissan, all other (Japanese) auto manufacturers already has some degree of collaboration with or partial ownership by Toyota. So I guess that made Honda the only or the most viable option to take on Nissan?

Reportedly, the merger will bring some benefits to Honda as Nissan has a somewhat stronger European presence than they do. Personally, I am a little skeptical of that because Nissan doesn't seem all that strong in Europe either, and their European factory is also in the UK (just like Honda).

[EvoFire]

It's a merger that's destined to fizzle out, but being Japanese, there's probably some tax credits or money involved. I'm pretty sure Nissan was encouraged to take on Mitsubishi as well.

It is true that Toyota has a hand in quite a few manufacturers already, and really no one else has the resources to do it either.

Toyota owns part of:
Fuji Industries(Subaru)
Daihatsu
Isuzu

They have a partnership with Mazda for the next gen RWD architecture.

Nissan had been a slow motion trainwreck for the last decade though.
They do have a bit more presence in Europe with the Qashqai and whatever their version of the Kicks is called. They also still sell the Juke there as well.

[trollface]

Nissan was still selling Datsuns in 2022.

[TypeRNammer]

Nissan should re hire this man

[supafamous]

I would imagine the entire ICE Nissan lineup becomes rebadged Hondas (or are built off Honda platforms) by 2030 or so - other than the body on frame platform there's nothing in the Nissan portfolio worth keeping and Honda is simply not getting into the big truck space with an uncompetitive product.

That's a lot of Nissan engineers that aren't needed anymore and presumably a tonne of cost savings although I don't know what happens to the "amazing" lease deals and bad credit loans for Sentras and Altimas.

[AstulzerRZD]

Originally Posted by dark0821

I am sure everyone is aware, but as a noob, I don't know shit, so I want people with way more insight and knowlege to discuss

Pretty sure a money losing halo car will be the last on their agenda... but imagine the 3 performance teams working together lololol one can dream~

Honda failed in Europe.
Nissan is fine.

Nissan failed everywhere else.
Honda’s so strong in North America … they sell more GM EVs than GM.

Honda needs hybrids that work at cost for large SUV/Odyssey.
Expect an ePower Pilot/Odyssey.

Honda needs large EVs.
Nissan Ariya is competitive with some cost cutting.

It’s not a total win for either but there is some potential.
there will be hella job losses and manufacturing capacity will still still get cut.

Real question is whether they can integrate their software (N/A), powertrain (JPN) and app teams (EU) instead of keeping them in silos

[Traum]

Originally Posted by TypeRNammer

Nissan should re hire this man

I read/watched a few interviews with Ghosn, and it is almost funny how obvious his grudge still is towards Nissan (and maybe also the Japanese gov). He is making himself sound neutral and logical with his analysis, but he pretty much has nothing good to say about the merger at all, and he is really critical of stuff on the Nissan side LOL~

The thought keeps coming back to me that if the media wants someone to criticize Nissan to the point where it is total trash, Ghosn is always the man they can count on LOL~

[68style]

I mean, they did try to imprison him for life without anything resembling a far trial... I can understand his hatred lol

[supafamous]

https://insideevs.com/news/745625/ho...ggling-reason/

Honda's CEO Struggles To Explain Why Nissan Merger Makes Sense

Honda's CEO said it was "difficult" to pinpoint what makes Nissan a strong business partner.

Honda's CEO just had a pretty awkward press moment related to its potential merger with Nissan. When asked why Nissan would make a good business partner for the mid-sized automaker, Toshihiro Mibe struggled to find the right words before blurting out something that brought laughter to a room full of journalists.

"That's a difficult one," said Mibe.

It was an honest statement. Perhaps too honest, as it summed up the collective head-scratching around the world after the merger talks were revealed. Is there some sort of superpower alliance being formed behind the curtain that the world isn't allowed to know about? Or are these just two automakers struggling in different areas looking to combine efforts to stay competitive in a changing market?

Me too man.

[RabidRat]

Execs are highly trained to use all kinds of deflective PR language for questions they can't or won't answer.

I really doubt that was the accident they made it out to be, especially when it was such an elephant in the room lol.

[supafamous]

Originally Posted by RabidRat

Execs are highly trained to use all kinds of deflective PR language for questions they can't or won't answer.

I really doubt that was the accident they made it out to be, especially when it was such an elephant in the room lol.

Honda's CEO probably needs Obama's Anger Translator so we can hear what he really is thinking which is probably:

"The Japanese govt is forcing us to acquire this corpse of a car company in order to provide the appearance of saving thousands of jobs when in fact we're going to layoff half the company since all their products suck compared to ours"

[JDMDreams]

Still waiting for 400z Gtr fire sales

[Badhobz]

When I was just a young lad, I always liked Nissan more than Honda. Constantly battled with stupid civic ex boys and their bullshit vtec cheater cars.

Who would have guessed in 2025 that they would merge. What a strange timeline we live in

[EvoFire]

Originally Posted by supafamous

https://insideevs.com/news/745625/ho...ggling-reason/



Me too man.

Pretty much what a lot of ppl are saying. but you'd think he'd at least be prepped to tout the benefits of Nissan's EV knowhow and some bof and offroad capabilities.

But yeah the passenger car business, Nissan has got nothing that Honda wants.

[JDMDreams]

I really wonder what happened to Nissan? Cvt killed them? Like they were killing Acura and Lexus with 350z G35. They had the fx. I wonder why they never put more models out and continued to develop them. All the m and q platform cars were good. I remember the Altima 2.5 was so fast compared to Honda cars of the day. There's used to be Maxima's and Pathfinders everywhere.

[EvoFire]

Carlos Ghosn happened.

[dark0821]

I say that....but Ghosn was dealt a very bad hand when he took over. He did what he could.

- Nissan never hopped on the hybrid train
- they were way too behind/small (as in super super super limited R&D to try and catch up in Hybrid at that point)
- they bet on the EVs (early Leaf) to try and skip hybrid altogether
- even with "ok" Leaf sales, it turned out to be a money losing venture
- with EV sucking up most of the R&D, the rest of the line up suffered

Here we are.... 400Z on what's really a modified .......350Z chassis...

[trollface]

I've seen one 400z since they came out.

[JDMDreams]

I don't get why they never improved the leaf considering the we're am early adopter. They apparently had hybrid in other markets but we never got much of it in na

[EvoFire]

Originally Posted by dark0821

I say that....but Ghosn was dealt a very bad hand when he took over. He did what he could.

- Nissan never hopped on the hybrid train
- they were way too behind/small (as in super super super limited R&D to try and catch up in Hybrid at that point)
- they bet on the EVs (early Leaf) to try and skip hybrid altogether
- even with "ok" Leaf sales, it turned out to be a money losing venture
- with EV sucking up most of the R&D, the rest of the line up suffered

Here we are.... 400Z on what's really a modified .......350Z chassis...

Originally Posted by JDMDreams

I don't get why they never improved the leaf considering the we're am early adopter. They apparently had hybrid in other markets but we never got much of it in na

I don't get it either, they spent their money on the Titan, which didn't sell.

You'd think they would look at the Tundra and get it that it is extremely hard to break in. The Titan was also two different trucks, the regular gas and the Titan XD which used a cummins diesel and it got very quickly discontinued. They dumped so much money into it I doubt they made it back.

The Patrol/Armada/QX80 also always operated in the shadow of the Land Cruiser. It was Land Cruiser > Pajero > Patrol.

Those are big money segments, but that's if they sold to begin with.

The Ariya came too late and too little. They could be doing a BMW with electrified drivetrains across their lineup, but instead have two meager offerings.

Their RWD architecture was good, but they did nothing to it since it came out in the 2000's. It's been 20 years and they are still building the same car. You'd think it's a good thing because the tooling is paid off, they can keep making incremental improvements, and it'll be great as enthusiasts laments the death of driving feel. But no, they did things to make it worse. Wifi steering, turbo engine that's unreliable, a convertible that doesn't sell, a hybrid that they didn't advertise.


The hybrid bit, Acura did the same weird thing with the MDX, they made a MDX hybrid for two years, but never advertised it and quietly killed it. I don't know the engineering behind the Q50 hybrid or the MDX hybrid though, RZD might know a bit more

[JDMDreams]

Yea I never understood why they didn't spend more effort on hybrids Honda and Nissan, they had the tech, insight, Civic hybrid, Accord hybrid, nsx, rlx hybrid. I don't get why they don't just try to push it out more. Take a loss make it the same price as V6 or do what Toyota did and have hybrid only. Take it or leave it.

[supafamous]

Originally Posted by JDMDreams

I really wonder what happened to Nissan? Cvt killed them? Like they were killing Acura and Lexus with 350z G35. They had the fx. I wonder why they never put more models out and continued to develop them. All the m and q platform cars were good. I remember the Altima 2.5 was so fast compared to Honda cars of the day. There's used to be Maxima's and Pathfinders everywhere.

It's always money. They had very few top quality products in the last 20 years and those that were there rarely printed money - the G35 was a winner but it didn't sell in the kind of volumes or prices to fund more development. Same goes for everything they sold - even when the Altima briefly was competitive with the Accord/Camry they weren't selling it at margins that made much money (Nissan didn't have the brand equity of Honda/Toyota so they always sold for less)

In the past year their profit margin has hovered around 1% despite very little R&D spend (warmed over product after warmed over product) while Honda is around 5% and Toyota has gotten as high as 11%. Both Honda and Toyota are spending tonnes of money on R&D even as they make solid profits. Even Mazda manages 3-5% margins despite being tiny and they're investing tonnes into their RWD platform and new engines (Mazda has made a lot of hay selling their top trims heavily)

Nissan is basically the Japanese version of Stellantis (maybe worse). They may have EV know how because they started earlier but I really doubt they have anything today that Honda doesn't have. Their body on frame isn't class competitive either - I don't see Honda taking it and adding it to their lineup in anyway.

[AstulzerRZD]

Honda's a little arrogant considering their EU sales are in the shitter and so are their South East Asia sales.

On hybrids, geared systems are just terribly inefficient and expensive - F150 Powerboost, MDX Sport Hybrid, Land Cruiser/Tundra, Wrangler 4XE all blow dicks.
Honda's IMA system also had guaranteed failure.

Nissan's half dead because Japanese and French management fighting left no one to steer the ship. But with..

1) Strong sales in price sensitive markets like EU / South East Asia / South America
2) Large and powerful product mix on small end (Rogue Sport, Kicks, Versa)
3) ePower that can scale well to larger platforms unlike Toyota HSD
4) Homegrown EV tech that's better than Toyota/Honda Prologue

It's unfair to say they're doing shit; Japan just didn't want Foxconn to acquire Nissan.