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How Nissan and Honda's $60B merger talks collapsed
- bearjaws 2y agoIMO a Honda Nissan merger would have been terrible for Honda. Nissan is clearly an anchor, and acquiring it would have just dragged Honda down .
- Grazester 2y agoFunny that's what those Nissan CVT's and variable compression engines are only good for, anchors.
- red-iron-pine 2y agonah they're far too freakin fragile to be anchors, given how regularly they shatter or break
- VectorLock 2y agoIts too bad since Honda has seemed to have totally lost its luster the past decade or so. Honda was Apple to Toyota's Microsoft for a long time, now their cars are bland and undifferentiated, rather than the innovative leaders they used to be.
- killerpopiller 2y agohabe you seen the Honda e?
- VectorLock 2y agoIts cute but not particularly exciting in my opinion, what do you think?
- thedrbrian 2y agoand it's not a tenth as good looking as the concept
- VectorLock 2y agoUnfortunately they never are.
- lmz 2y agoThe Honda e which is no longer produced? https://www.motor1.com/news/700419/honda-e-production-ending/ https://www.motor1.com/news/700419/honda-e-production-ending...
- robin_reala 2y agoI would have bought one had it even had a 50kwh battery, but 35kwh made it just dead in the water to me unfortunately.
- JamesSwift 2y agoUhh, the Odyssey is still best of breed for minivans in the price segment.
- VectorLock 2y agoYet still bland and undifferentiated and a minivan.
- mauvehaus 2y agoI'm not personally convinced that minivans lend themselves to much differentiation. They all hold about seven people, and more dollars gets you more screens. It's a box on wheels that gets seven people from point a to point b. The screens help stupify the kids in the back to make the journey quieter for the adults in the front. Nobody is shopping by zero-sixty times, the maintenance intervals are all about the same, and they all fit roughly the same amount of stuff. The most differentiation you're likely to find is that one or two will fit a sheet of plywood in the back, which is admittedly a pretty fringe thing to differentiate on, and frequently only matters to the second owner who is a tradesperson who doesn't want a full-sized van and doesn't mind a few stains from the kids who used to ride around in the back eating their breakfasts. Ironically, the Honda Odyssey used to be differentiated by having regular doors in the back instead of sliding doors. They clearly decided that that wasn't an advantageous differentiator, and went to sliding doors after just four years.
- protocolture 2y agoStill pissed they removed the Jazz from the australian market. It was honestly my definition of perfect small car for 10 years.
- acomjean 2y agoThe end of the honda element makes me grumpy too.
- matthewdgreen 2y agoI have a Prologue, which is a wonderful EV. Unfortunately it’s manufactured by GM because Honda has been asleep at the wheel regarding EVs. They need to wake up and fast.
- bcatanzaro 2y agoSo surprising to me that GM’s most successful EV in some ways is sold by Honda.
- JohnBooty 2y agoFrom my consumer's perspective: amen. At least in the US they were always "like Toyota, but a bit more fun." I have a friend who worked for Honda as an engineer in the past decade and he concurred. He said the goal was seemingly to make everything as "mid" as possible. Their utter snoozing on the hybrid/EV game is baffling. I am not sure how much of that was a failure to see the future, and how much of that was (perhaps?) due to Toyota snapping up a bunch of patents on basic concepts. My extremely loose understanding is that you can't realistically build a hybrid without licensing a bunch of Toyota's patents, but, I could be wrong. (I mention it in the hopes that somebody with actual understanding can confirm or correct)
- ycombinatrix 2y agoHonda E?
- olyjohn 2y agoI could not understand why this merger was happening. What possible benefit was there for Honda to take on Nissan's cruft?
- thuddrff567gg 2y agoI don't know. I thought they could benefit from Nissan's EVs - the thing they have going with Sony is too expensive to be able to work ($90K for the base model eek!).
- mrguyorama 2y agoThis basically means Nissan is dying. It's finances are screwed right now, and this was essentially their last hope. Nissan may not survive the year.
- owlninja 2y agoThis made me think of the Nissan.com guy and am just now learning he passed in 2020. https://nissan.com/ https://nissan.com/
- user3939382 2y agoOh that’s sad :( I was always rooting for him.
- encom 2y agoAs a Leaf owner, that has me worried :/
- morkalork 2y agoI don't understand what went wrong here, for a while the Nissan Leaf was _the_ economical all electric sedan. Toyota was and still is dragging their feet on it and Nissan had a lead for years just to blow it?
- kenhwang 2y agoFor starters, the Leaf wasn't a sedan, it was a hatchback. In the US market, hatchbacks have always significantly lagged sedans in sales despite being more practical. The regular Prius has evolved to look sleeker and sportier with each generation, but the boxy hatchback Prius V variant was quickly discontinued after introduction due to poor sales. US consumer preference seems to weigh aesthetic appeal much more than other markets, even at the cost of function. Some other examples are the rugged boxy SUVs that have an aerodynamic/fuel economy penalty compared to their sleek blob counterparts, or the the coupe SUVs that sacrifice both rear headroom and storage capacity for a "sportier" look.
- csours 2y agoAt this point I feel like a rising stock price after a crisis should be a major red flag for long term corporate survival. Carlos Ghosn was able to "turn Nissan around", but it was at the expense of future product capabilities (in my opinion) [Disclosure I work for GM, this is solely my own opinion] Also, I must say that it is not clear to me that anyone could know what a long term winning play looked like 10-15 years ago when the damage was done (in my opinion). It takes a lot of effort and money to make a mediocre automobile, it takes a lot more to make a high quality automobile.
- orwin 2y agoUnder Goshn and his close early advisors, Renault-Nissan started working on EVs, launching the Leaf and Zoé. Early, he also managed to streamline production of the two companies, and started to implement management changes that let some workers have more autonomy. The issue is that power got to his head and truly believe he was the second coming of Jesus or something, and stopped improving his companies to rub shoulders with the Nepo CEO/aristocrat crowd. Had he continued the push toward affordable EV, Nissan could have been BYD, but R&D stopped, for no visible reason. My personal theory is that the fallout from his divorce estranged him from his early friends and his closest advisor (his wife) and idiotic sycophants made him believe he was above the law and deserved even more. I've heard a lot of good things about pre-2008 Goshn, from people who aren't usually glazing billionaires, so maybe I'm biased.
- csours 2y ago> My personal theory is that the fallout from his divorce ... Yes, I've noticed that people having nasty public fights with family members can lead to extremely negative effects on decision making.
- kridsdale1 2y agoBoy, that final paragraph sure looks like another automaker CEO…
- namdnay 2y ago
- tahoeskibum 2y agoNissan, Honda & eventually Toyota are going to go the way of Nokia/Motorola after iPhone came out. Cheap and reliable Chinese EVs will take over the market (like Android), while Tesla will probably maintain a halo premium product like iPhone.
- mongol 2y agoTesla is going down the drain, at least in Europe, unless shareholders evict Musk. Nothing iPhone-like with that brand anymore.
- user3939382 2y agoThis sounds like political venting more than a financial analysis.
- margalabargala 2y agoThe parent specified in Europe. It's a fact that in January 2025, European Tesla sales have had significant YoY declines, attributed to Musk's political activity. A greater than 50% drop in sales in France and Germany, for example. Here are a couple sources. https://www.ft.com/content/ea2329e4-b4bc-4e2d-be34-e9a8ea31129c https://www.ft.com/content/ea2329e4-b4bc-4e2d-be34-e9a8ea311... https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/05/business/tesla-germany-elon-musk.html https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/05/business/tesla-germany-el...
- b112 2y agoI cannot read the FT article, but the nyt article says sales have halved, and are now under 2k per month in Germany. So it sounds like their sakes were tiny before this halving. And with numbers that low, one ad campaign or new model by VW could change them. His donations to parties in Germany seems like a weird reason why. He's done all sorts of things in the past, and sales went up.
- mongol 2y ago"Tesla’s sales plummet across Europe" Financial Times January 2025 https://www.ft.com/content/ea2329e4-b4bc-4e2d-be34-e9a8ea31129c https://www.ft.com/content/ea2329e4-b4bc-4e2d-be34-e9a8ea311...
- alecco 2y agoJapanese carmakers are going to become irrelevant [1] unless there's a major change. But that's very unlikely due to: 1. Supply chains and key raw materials mostly controlled by China 2. Japan's demographic collapse 3. Japanese Gen Z fed up with an unwinnable rat race where they live to just pay rent and groceries It's very sad. [1] https://carnewschina.com/2025/01/13/byd-surpass-toyota-in-japans-2024-ev-sales/ https://carnewschina.com/2025/01/13/byd-surpass-toyota-in-ja...
- formerly_proven 2y agoThere's one graph that basically predicts which countries are going to fail and which are going to prevail. It's the graph that shows how many people in the "doing things" age bracket a country has. Compare these: (germany) https://population.un.org/wpp/graphs?loc=276&type=Probabilistic%20Projections&category=Population&subcategory=Age%2025-69 https://population.un.org/wpp/graphs?loc=276&type=Probabilis... (alternatively, Europe as a whole) https://population.un.org/wpp/graphs?loc=908&type=Probabilistic%20Projections&category=Population&subcategory=Age%2025-69 https://population.un.org/wpp/graphs?loc=908&type=Probabilis... (Japan) https://population.un.org/wpp/graphs?loc=392&type=Probabilistic%20Projections&category=Population&subcategory=Age%2025-69 https://population.un.org/wpp/graphs?loc=392&type=Probabilis... (China) https://population.un.org/wpp/graphs?loc=156&type=Probabilistic%20Projections&category=Population&subcategory=Age%2025-69 https://population.un.org/wpp/graphs?loc=156&type=Probabilis... to this one (US) https://population.un.org/wpp/graphs?loc=840&type=Probabilistic%20Projections&category=Population&subcategory=Age%2025-69 https://population.un.org/wpp/graphs?loc=840&type=Probabilis... A key aggravating factor is most countries in the first group have stagnating productivity and the country in the second group has raising productivity on top. This creates a compound advantage for the country in the second group. It seems likely to me that there is almost no degree of anti-national behavior the government of that country would need to exhibit or no amount of country-eroding policies that could forfeit this fundamental advantage. They'd need to get their country literally nuked or something similarly catastrophic.
- morkalork 2y agoCanada doesn't feel like it's winning despite what the graph says*. Bringing in tons of working-aged immigrants has caused housing (and other living) costs to explode, which in turn has lead to less people having children, which leads to more immigration to fill the gap and the whole thing has been spiraling. Not fun at all. * https://population.un.org/wpp/graphs?loc=124&type=Probabilistic%20Projections&category=Population&subcategory=Age%2025-69 https://population.un.org/wpp/graphs?loc=124&type=Probabilis...
- alephnerd 2y agoWhile this is HN so any automotive conversation inevitabely becomes an ideological war between EV vs ICE fanatics, this didn't play as significant a role in the failure of Nissan and Honda's merger. As stated in the article - "the merger talks unravelled in a little more than a month due to Nissan's pride and insufficient alarm about its predicament" More critically, Japanese automakers have always tried to diversify away from Japan as part of the "Flying Geese" paradigm. For example, Toyota and Honda truly became "American", Mitsubishi truly became "Southeast Asian" (Indonesia, Philippines, Thailand, Vietnam), Isuzu became "Thai", and Suzuki became "Indian". Nissan on the other hand tried a foreign expansion with the Datsun in the 1960s-80s, but that crashed and burned horribly, and reduced their appetite to expand abroad. Post-Datsun, most of their international expansion tied their future to Brazil, China, and India as part of the Renault-Nissan partnership under Carlos Ghosn, but that itself came very late (early 2000s) and other players (domestic, international, and Japanese) were well established in those markets already. Furthermore, Nissan Group's prestige division Nissan Shatai is too entwined politically to Kyushu, which scuttled the merger as Honda would have shut down Nissan's Kyushu factories which represent much of Nissan's capex. Fundamentally, Nissan's leadership has a low appetite of taking risks abroad after the failure of Datsun, and this would have been toxic for an internationally minded Japanese firm like Honda who has stronger PMF abroad compared to domestically in Japan.
- Apocryphon 2y agoWhat about Mazda?
- Reubachi 2y agoTLDR; Mazda should merge with Nissan while they still can do it on a fire sale. Mazda is a huge outlier in manfacturing because they are small, but have motorsports calibre/history (meaning they have a history of homologating sports cars.) Mazda sells an order of magnitude less cars than even newer companies like BYD. Even less than isuzu. Because of this, they can more tightly control investor expectations, profit/loss. The stock value rarely changes, nevermind grows, so investors are confident in stability and dividends. AKA, if you work at mazda, you aren't gonna be seen as a mega rich engineer. If you invest in mazda, you know you're gonna be able to sell at any point without much worry. That said, I see no future for mazda beyond acqusition by chinese firm. It Manufactures in far too high COL countries, sells for too cheap, Self cannabalizing (9 different SUV models), too tight of a CUV market, lack of brand identity.....and the biggest issue, they cannot afford to r and d another miata gen, another RX-7,8 gen. mazda desperetely needs a cash infusion, or joining into a much wider network with more selling power. Until then, I fear they will coast down the same road as Mitsubishi in the us.
- numpad0 2y agoThis merger deal was a strange one. Honda CEO on stage wasn't sure why he was there, unnamed Nissan exec reportedly remarked "good riddance" to the deal falling through, ex-Nissan Foxconn exec expressing interest and Foxconn CEO eventually declining through the press, and so on. Whoever was pushing it for whatever reason, basically none of involved parties were interested in it, other than that everyone agreed that hypothetically combining Nissan and Honda would create some accumulated capitals.
- AcerbicZero 2y agoI haven't been following this closely, but what was the appeal for Honda? I mean, Nissan has a few cars that are moving in OK numbers these days but I don't see many routes for a return to form over the long run; Commodity cars are a dying breed.
- dghlsakjg 2y ago> Commodity cars are a dying breed. Not in Asia, the worlds biggest car market, and where the worlds biggest car making country is. More than anything, low end electric cars are MASSIVELY popular in China.
- poglet 2y agoWas surprised how popular there are, also self driving taxis in Wuhan and other places.
- bobthepanda 2y agothere's a lot of incentives pushing people into EVs. For example, to limit pollution and congestion it often takes winning a lottery to get a car registration for ICE, but that's generally much laxer if not completely gone for EVs. In Shanghai at one point the cost of a ICE vehicle registration cost more than a low end EV.
- seanmcdirmid 2y agoBeijing has a lottery for plates instead, except the allocation for EVs is separate from ICEs, so it is much easily to get an EV. Back in 2016, you started seeing Model S’s driving around Beijing, and those were definitely imported with something like a 20-30% tax (at least), but the only alternative was no luxury car (like the famous black Audi that used to be super common), so they just started showing up.
- 1-more 2y agoYou read about the sub like $20K EVs in China and you think "maybe we're due to get belt and roaded here."
- tonymet 2y agoAuto industry is an impossible game. Policy makers are forcing them to run concurrent production lines (ICE & electric) , absurdly complex product development, and consumers don't yet want electric vehicles. You can see this in car price explosion and tanking profits. The result will be consolidation and further automotive inflation.
- ggm 2y agoHow did VAG succeed? Because it's the same problems: culture fit, market fit. Nissan kept but focused on e.g. light industrial vehicles, ATVs and military while Honda plays at being Sony/Apple for cars? That could have worked. But somewhere you need synergies. Common rail, for chassis, gearboxes, engines. Diverge on fit out, but share parts. Nobody in Oz buys Honda Utes. Loads of Nissan tradie vehicles. It collapsed because they didn't want to change.
- decimalenough 2y ago> critical to the company's EV strategy TIL that Nissan has an EV strategy, other than "build the world's first mass-market EV (Leaf), then ignore it for a decade".
- Etheryte 2y agoI think this really underlines the lack of clear leadership and vision. They were already headed the right way, all they had to do was keep going.
- pmg101 2y agoI mean... A more accurate description might be, "They had already taken one step in the right direction, 15 years ago, all they had to do was make any further steps in this direction any time since then!"
- cptskippy 2y agoI don't think people realize just how much thoughtful design went into the original Nissan Leaf and just how well designed it was. Sure, it's ugly as sin and a glorified golf cart with respect to it's range but it's also a rock solid EV and very forward thinking EV. In terms of safety, it came standard with backup cameras and low speed noise features that are now mandatory on all EVs in the US. In 2013 they introduced a heat-pump option and had features like heated seats and steering wheel to reduced the climate control draw on the meager battery. The Tesla Model 3 that came out 5 years later didn't have low speed noise, heat-pump, or heated steering wheel. Though they were added later. In terms of reliability, it just works, so many other EVs are completely unreliable and suffer from numerous issues, many of which have nothing to do with the EV platform. Tesla, Lucid, and VW all have or had issues with door handles. GM couldn't seem to make water proof batteries that didn't explode. Kia's EVs go through 12v batteries faster than a vibrator goes through AA batteries. BMWs are great right up until you DC Fast Charge them, at which point they like to go into limp mode and throw faults.
- 2y ago
- adev_ 2y agoThe Carlos Ghosn story is really one of the biggest cliffhanger in automotive history. When Ghosn got arrested, the Alliance Renault-Nissan was shredded to pieces. Many in Europe (including myself) were betting on a Nissan survival and a quick death of Renault. Renault that was the sick dog of the French automotive industry for decades. Mainly due to bad business decisions and a lot of debt dating from before the arrival of Carlos Ghosn. With Ghosn in exile and no clear successor: there were very little optimism in Europe about the survival of Renault. But ironically: that could not be farther from the Truth. Renault get away with a pretty well executed electrification. It is now hyped and healthy. Several models have been acclaimed by critics [1] and are even qualified as 'sexy' by the younger generation. It also sells well: The Megan EV sells well, so does the R5 and the Scenic. Renault even outsells Stellantis in Europe[2]: Something that did not happen for decades. And near to that Nissan, the big one in the story, seems to go from bad to worst. Nissan's stocks are going straight to the ground and with pretty worrying financial status. Nissan seems stucked with a conservative Japanese high level management unable to understand nor execute the changes the brand need. They completely miss the electrification: The leaf is outdated, the Ariya arrived late and full of problems[3]. And the rest of the product ranges do not sell well at all outside of Japan. Nissan need urgently help, and pretty much nobody want to work with them in Japan. This is again one of this twist of fate that only the automotive world is able to provide. [1]: https://www.topgear.com/car-reviews/renault/megane-e-tech-electric https://www.topgear.com/car-reviews/renault/megane-e-tech-el... [2] https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/european-car-sales-up-09-2024-renault-overtakes-stellantis-dec-acea-says-2025-01-21/ https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/europe... [3]: https://www.ariyaforums.com/threads/so-many-issues-with-less-than-1-year-old-ariya-any-suggestions.1892/ https://www.ariyaforums.com/threads/so-many-issues-with-less...
- antonkochubey 2y agoRenault's ICE engines are also known to be extremely reliable amongst central and southern europe's taxi drivers (who put insane mileage on them). Unlike other French marques - Peugeot and Citroen - who are in the "stay away" category amongst people who drive 40,000+ km/year
- 2y ago
- dismalaf 2y agoI mean, I kind of understand Nissan's position of not wanting to be a subsidy. And while Nissan is probably in a worse position than Honda, Honda has fallen from grace as well, they were/are a one trick pony and also in danger of complete irrelevance. What I don't get is how Nissan exited so many segments it did well in... Look at off-road SUVs: Jeep is making a killing selling Wranglers, Ford can't keep Broncos in stock, Toyota is now selling 4Runners AND Land Cruisers in the US, where's the new Xterra? Compact to midsize trucks are all the rage too, Nissan basically ignored that segment not updating the Frontier for what, 15 years? Then coming out with a new Frontier that is already 10 years behind on arrival... They squandered their first mover advantage in EVs... They literally gave up on everything that isn't a cheap shitbox, all they seem to sell is bland, cheap small SUVs and cars. Meanwhile a bunch of segments they used to care about are exploding. Honda meanwhile doesn't really have any hits other than the Civic and maybe CR-V... Their SUVs are boring, their cars are boring, they have no off roader, never seen one of their EVs (according to their website it exists). Hyundai/Kia are doing everything Honda is doing but better. Honda has racing pedigree and probably could be doing something interesting but they just aren't. An actual merger with a new name and some new energy could have revitalized them both and allowed them to escape the past if neither of them want to play to their historical strengths anyway... Honda making Nissan a subsidiary though is also old thinking, and just ain't it.
- rawgabbit 2y agoMany years ago, companies believed in diversification. Not having all their eggs in one basket and hopefully having one of their half dozen research projects pay off in the long run. Nowadays it is about sacrificing your future for short term profits.