Honda, Nissan, and potentially Mitsubishi are trying to merge.

[Xist]

Copypasta from Imgur:

Earlier this year, Honda and Nissan also signed an agreement that focused on jointly developing electric vehicles and automotive software.

Nissan is struggling and if the talks go through, the partnership would create the third-largest automaker in the world based on sales volume.

CEO Makoto Uchida reduced his salary by 50 percent.

That is the best thing I have ever heard about Datsun!

Over the next six months, the automakers will discuss merging their operations under a single holding company, with the goal of completing the merger by August 2026.

https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a6...-merger-plans/

With electric vehicle sales growth slowing and [First-Lady]-elect Donald J. Trump gearing up to eliminate E.V. tax incentives in the United States, automakers must figure out how to sustain investments in gasoline- and battery-powered cars for an extended period, said Takaki Nakanishi, head of the automotive consulting firm Nakanishi Research Institute in Tokyo.

[President-elect Musk will never allow that! Will he try to hurt ICE vehicles?]

Nissan sells more than three million vehicles a year, while Honda sells nearly four million. A merger would position them as the world’s third-largest automaker group, behind Toyota, whose brands sold 11 million vehicles last year, and Volkswagen, which sold nine million. Honda and Nissan together employ about 325,000 people.

Last year, Nissan and its longtime French partner, Renault, agreed to take steps to unwind their alliance. Around the same time, Honda and G.M. decided to scrap a plan to develop a line of lower-priced electric vehicles, less than two years after the companies announced the joint effort.

Under the automakers’ current market valuations, the combination would be worth more than $50 billion.

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/23/b...ger-talks.html

[freebeard]

[First-Lady]-elect Donald J. Trump
...
President-elect Musk will never allow that!

Sounds like Alexander Soros has gotten into your head, charge rent.

patriots.win: One would only hope that Nissan does not hurt Honda's product quality - Nissan, Honda announce plans to merge, creating world’s No. 3 automaker

[JSH]

This is not a good merger but the best that can happen. Once again Nissan is facing bankruptcy. Last time Renault bailed them out and put Ghosn in charge. Nissan cut the old managers, cut costs, dropped their vertical integrated supply chain, closed factories and laid off excess workers. That brought Nissan back to profitability and growth. All was well for a bit but once Nissan was doing well again Japanese pride got in the way and they grew to resent being run by foreigners.

This came to a head when Renault renewed Ghosn’s CEO contract with the express directive to turn the Nissan / Renault partnership into a irreversible merger under a common holding company with Renault in charge. That was a bridge to far and the Japanese government arrested Ghosn and another US executive on trumped up charges. Ghosn famously escaped in a musical equipment case and now lives the good life on the lamb.

Nissan went back to being Nissan and now they are back to where they were before Renault rode in to the rescue. The problem is they have cut off all chance of foreign investment with the circus around Ghosn. It was made very clear that the Japanese government will not allow a foreign company to buy a major Japanese automaker. So that leaves Toyota and Honda. Toyota is already tied up with Diahatsu, Subaru, and Mazda and they don’t need more volume. There is no upside for them.

So that leaves Honda. Honda is doing well but at only 4 million vehicles per year are too small to survive the next decade alone. The problem is that Nissan is a poor fit for a merger. Nissan and Honda’s primary markets and product lines overlap. All this merger does is add volume. While they are putting on a happy face and saying this is an equal partnership the common company will be run by a board primarily made up of Honda executives and run buy a Honda Chairman and CEO


A Honda / GM merger would be ideal but simply will not be allowed.