Nissan may merge with Honda to challenge Toyota and Tesla

earlier this monthwe shared news that Nissan appears to be in trouble and may only have 12-14 months left to survive. As we’ve seen before, one way to stay in business is to merge with another company. Not only would this save Nissan, it would also save both automakers development costs. Nissan’s lifeline may just come from within its home country. According to business publication Nikkei, “Honda Motors and Nissan Motor Co. are set to begin merger talks as early as Monday as the two automakers seek to create a company that can compete with Japanese leader Toyota Motor Corp. in capital-intensive areas such as electric vehicles. The countervailing group.” Another goal? Chinese electric car makers and Tesla.

It wouldn’t be that shocking (no pun intended) if this actually happened. Back in August, Nissan and Honda agreed to collaborate on developing platforms for future software-defined vehicles (SDVs), which Bosch defines as platforms where software shapes the customer experience and sometimes even the hardware specifications. In the same month, Nissan, Honda and Mitsubishi signed a memorandum of understanding on cooperation in vehicle electrification and intelligence.

Mitsubishi has been working with Nissan for years through alliances with Nissan and Renault. The French automaker currently holds a 15% stake in Nissan. In early November, Mitsubishi repurchased 10.02% of the total shares issued to Nissan, reducing its shareholding in Mitsubishi from 34.07% to 24.05%. Currently, Mitsubishi’s official statement is that no decision has been made on future cooperation between Nissan and Honda.

According to InsideEVs, there is a fourth company among them. Taiwanese electronics company Foxconn, one of Apple’s suppliers, wants to directly acquire a majority stake in Nissan. Honda reportedly threatened to drop everything and contact Foxconn if that happened. Renault Try buying some Nissan.

Nothing is certain yet, but generally, where there’s smoke, there’s fire. There’s no question that it’s in an automaker’s best interest to spread costs, and one way to do that is to partner with another company. The question is, given Nissan’s current situation, would a merger with Honda benefit both companies or just Nissan? We just have to wait, Z.