Nissan/Honda Maxima.
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Nissan and Honda have both announced they have officially started merger talks.
This is not a merger yet, however, that’s how it starts. By “entering negotiation toward a merger”.
This of course would be great news for Nissan since some of their execs were mentioning just a few days ago how bad Nissan’s financial situation was. Nissan stock just went up by 22% today.
I am not sure what is the current state of Nissan’s partnership with Renault and Mitsubishi, but it can’t be that great if they’re talking to Honda.
I am also not sure what Honda has to gain in this. And I’m not the only one since Honda shares went down almost 2% today. Honda and Nissan are in the same market, and they compete against each other. In the same way, their respective luxury brands, Acura and Infiniti, are also competitors.
The deal would create a holding company which would also include Mitsubishi since Nissan owns 24% of it.
While I do see the need for many car manufacturers to create partnerships with others, I just don’t see how positive that could be for Honda. Since they seem to be ahead of Nissan and Mitsubishi in every way.
Honda is hard at work on a series of new EVs based on the 00 series platform. Which will include a Honda Sedan and a new Acura SUV as soon as next year. This will probably be a more advanced platform than the one Nissan is currently using for the Ariya and the upcoming Leaf. And Honda does have hybrids as well.
Maybe the only reason for this is to lower costs against the Chinese competition around the world. Chinese manufacturers are now selling cheaper EVs in many countries and competing against them has proven to be unbelievably tough for most legacy brands.
One of the results of this upcoming merger could be a new Nissan Maxima, finally, one based on Honda’s new 00 Series sedan. (The illustration above shows what a near-future large Nissan EV sedan could look like.)
While Nissan has been unveiling many future EV sedan concepts, none of them have become production models, at least so far.
Let’s hope they all come out winners in this new chapter.