How Nissan and Honda's $60 billion merger talks collapsed.
How Nissan and Honda's $60 billion merger talks collapsed.
Intransigence, combined with what Honda management saw as Nissan's slow decision-making, helped torpedo a deal that would have created one of the world's largest automakers.
Summary
- Nissan's pride and denial hindered merger talks, sources say
- Honda pushed Nissan for deeper cuts to jobs, factory capacity, sources say
- Nissan unwilling to consider factory closures, sources say
- Honda's proposal to make Nissan a subsidiary caused tensions, sources say
- Honda realized Nissan has nothing to offer them
Sources say.
Honda is better off without them.
Personally think Nissan is better positioned for the EV future and Honda is likely to be the one that needed this more. 🤷♂️
Nah.
Honda has a much better product in the first place, their engineering approach has always been better than Nissan (I say this having worked on every major brand, and some unknowns).
Nissan is one of the better ones, but they're still a big step away from Honda.
And Honda was working on hydrogen nearly 30 years ago now, which seems poised to suplant batteries (again, maybe).
I got excited because I saw a Honda EV, a prologue. Looked it up, it's a rebranded Chevy Blazer. Honda is absolutely fucked...
Good
More Nissan for me!
But yeah, Nissan seems to be making some nicer cars lately. Hopefully they can shake off the bad stigma gained by Goghn's cost cutting and bad cvts. Plus, Nissan actually makes electric cars, something Honda, I don't believe, has even attempted yet. They had a sweet deal with GM, and they dropped the partnership. Nissans got the Leaf and Aria, and there's rumors of them using Mitsubishi's hybrid system in the upcoming years.
They were one of the few, if only, remaining manufacturers in the US that produced a subcompact car. Yet they are getting rid of both the Versa and Altima.
I hate how everybody bloated up their fleets with crossovers and SUVs...
I hate how everybody bloated up their fleets with crossovers and SUVs…
While I generally think regulations are a net positive, the cafe regulations treating SUVs as trucks for minimum mileage is the main reason for the ever increasing vehicle size and shift to massive SUVs dominating the roads.
They should be less punishing for smaller cars and more punishing for large vehicles designed for passengers and commuting.
I do worry about Nissan's future when they seem to be about this close to operating with zero profits.
Honda has made both the "e" in 2020 and "e:Ny1" in 2023, both seem like decent BEVs in their price segment.