At 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.
This seems to be the classic way in which management types destroy technical companies. Same thing happened a decade back in electronics companies in Japan (Sony comes to mind).
Technical competence is generally very hard to judge and often even harder replace. It's not surprising that the same management types are salivating at the thought of replacing people with AI.
> At this point I feel like a rising stock price after a crisis should be a major red flag for long term corporate survival.
It depends. If you see a lot of insider buying after a bottom it can be a good sign that there's strong internal faith in the companies future. I've used it as a buy signal myself before when a market cap is high enough. It has paid off.
> it is not clear to me that anyone could know what a long term winning play looked like 10-15 years ago
Well it probably _wasn't_ partnering with a Chinese state company to try to expand the brand there. That was a poison pill.
Under 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.
Its 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.
I 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!).
I 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.
Rumour mill is that the Japanese government was pressuring Honda to merge with Nissan to save Nissan. During a press conference the CEO of Honda Toshihiro Mibe couldn't articulate a reason justifying the merger.
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.
While 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.
I think it's more realists vs. at this point the clearly losing ICE proponent side. The EV market grows double digit percentages every year. Mostly at the cost of the ICE car market. Even last year when lots of the ICE manufacturers insisted the EV market was 'shrinking' (no such thing happened), the EV market actually expanded by about 20% globally. And since the overall car market did not grow by such numbers, guess where all that growth went: not them.
Japanese companies like Nissan and Honda are a bit on that losing side. Quite literally; both are struggling with rapidly reducing demand for their now clearly obsolete vehicles and the ramp up of the production of competitive EV replacements for those.
Nissan basically dialed back investments after they got rid of Ghosn and the collaboration with Renault. Which was actually producing some early successes. Like the Nissan Leaf. They could have doubled down on that but they didn't.
Now years later they are basically facing a lot of issues with with an outdated product portfolio that can't keep up with new EVs from others grabbing lots of their market share in most of their key markets.
The reason the Nissan-Honda merger was on the table at all is that it really has gotten that bad for both of them. And of course merging two poorly performing companies doesn't result in a situation where the sum of the parts is larger than the value of the parts.
The reason this deal bounced (and was probably a bad idea to begin with) is that Nissan is in denial about their existential need to adapt to the changing market. EVs are at the center of that.
>While 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.
I cant stand Teslas, and tesla look alikes, they feel like sitting inside of an iPad. I think GWM has the right of it. Just pump out hybrids and EV's that feel as much the same as an ICE vehicle as possible. Let the customer decide.
Japanese 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
I don't understand what point you're trying to make with your source. A relatively new company in the Japanese market (BYD) has increased sales in its specialized niche of EVs, beating out a minor competitor that sells only one model of EV as an option to it's brand loyal customers (Toyota, BZ4X). Meanwhile, the EV market as a whole has declined significantly in Japan over the last year.
Irrelevant to whom? Toyota, Honda and Subaru all have lifelong customers and for good reason. The cars often last for 20+ years with minimal upkeep.
The current crop of Chinese electric car makers are all trying to fake it until one of them makes it and the money spigot keeping them afloat will eventually get turned off at some point.[0] Good luck keeping that flashy EV running when the company goes bust.
There'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.
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.
I can understand point 1. But the other points seems odd to me. 2 is same in China, just delayed by maybe a decade or two but way way way worse due to one child policy.
As for point 3 it also feels odd. When we check stats in the 3 Asian Tigers, the rat race (and young population sentiment around it) seems like Japan < South Korea <<< China. And usually my friends from those countries usually feel the same way. Lie down movement, all the frustration in SK showed to the world through their entertainment kinda shows this too.
I doubt the Japanese government will let Nissan fold and will instead invest directly, allow Foxconn to take over or some combination thereof. Losing the formerly mighty Nissan would be a big black eye for the government.
How 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.
This 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.
Nissan, 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.
I have huge doubts that Teslas will retain a "halo premium", except in some very strange circles. Already they're an embarrassing car to own and the financials of that company are rapidly flushing down the toilet, making it a question of how long it will be a going concern (hence all the frantic rushing around for legitimacy in other markets...robots, why not?)
They are widely cited as unreliable, poorly built vehicles. My neighbour bought a used model S and the first time he saw us after buying it he came over to justify his purchase ("Got a killer price, etc").
Tesla gained a reputation of being the best EVs around, by virtue of being essentially the only company making EVs able to truly replace a gas car for close to a decade. It's easy to be the best in a category with just one competitor.
Now that other companies are making EVs that compete directly with Tesla, they aren't reliably best-in-class or best-in-price-point anymore. Compare the Rivian R1T to the Cybertruck, or the Equinox EV to the Model Y, or the Ioniq 6 to the Model 3. The top of the line Model S still doesn't really have any viable competitor.
Tesla has phenomenal battery and motor tech, but their actual car design leaves a lot to be desired, and that's starting to hurt them now that they aren't the only game in town.
And the fact that their CEO throws Nazi salutes at political rallies does not help their market share. In Europe at least that's directly impacting their sales.
So your prediction is that chinese EVs manage to take over and destroy the Japanese car market, but the American auto market somehow gets a pass and Tesla wins? Why would Tesla be any more able to withstand cars that cost like 1/2 for similar quality, and why wouldn't that same calculus apply to their "halo" products? Are the Chinese fundamentally incapable of building a luxury EV? And if Tesla somehow sees that an EV halo product is their only chance for survival, why wouldn't current halo manufacturers like BMW and Mercedes and Lexus also try for that market, and why are they sure to fail while Tesla succeeds?
And maybe your response to all of the above is that Tesla will not be allowed to fail as part of an industrial strategy on the part of America, in which case the question is why would the other domestic manufacturers like Ford and GM be allowed to fall by the wayside? And further, why would Japan not also embark on a similar strategy and prop up their domestic manufacturers?
Any way you look at it, a prediction that China wins out everywhere except for plucky old Tesla moving into the "Apple" position seems like some sort of bizarre partisanship/home team support that doesn't stand up to a moment of scrutiny.
Honest question: are there people who know about Lucid and don’t consider them nicer cars than Teslas?
Tesla doesn’t make a car as nice as the Air Sapphire… I don’t think they could if they wanted to. So they’re forced to stay in the less expensive / less quality market segment
All Tesla's global sales cars are due for replacement, and none are in the offing. Tesla are circling the drain, fast, and are very unlikely to be around in their current form in 5-10 years time - the replacement product they'd need to survive takes too long to develop and should have already started, but hasn't. Best case for them IMHO is that someone spots a key asset they own (IMHO most likely the supercharger network) and buys them for that, but the stock price is currently wildly overinflated which prevents it. One day, that bubble will burst.
TBH if I were on Tesla's board I'd be pushing for a stock-funded takeover of a company that has an actual plan and ability to deliver it. Merge with (say) Stellantis and they'd have a survival plan.
The 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.
Renault'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
This applies to all Japanese car companies now. They've basically told China, "Please, take the loyal market we've built up these past 40 years. We don't need or want it. We want to die."
It makes no sense.
They're betting on ICE vehicles losing no demand and on "clean" hydrogen completely displacing all demand for electric vehicles entirely.
And a quick rundown on how clean hydrogen energy works in Japan: they burn coal or petroleum to make liquid hydrogen that will replace petroleum-burning vehicles. So instead of using fuel directly, they burn stable fuel that can be used in most cars to make unstable fuel that can't be used in any cars. Smart.
I 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.
Many 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.
Auto 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.
csours|1 year ago
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.
thuddrff567gg|1 year ago
Technical competence is generally very hard to judge and often even harder replace. It's not surprising that the same management types are salivating at the thought of replacing people with AI.
timewizard|1 year ago
It depends. If you see a lot of insider buying after a bottom it can be a good sign that there's strong internal faith in the companies future. I've used it as a buy signal myself before when a market cap is high enough. It has paid off.
> it is not clear to me that anyone could know what a long term winning play looked like 10-15 years ago
Well it probably _wasn't_ partnering with a Chinese state company to try to expand the brand there. That was a poison pill.
orwin|1 year ago
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.
bearjaws|1 year ago
Nissan is clearly an anchor, and acquiring it would have just dragged Honda down .
VectorLock|1 year ago
Grazester|1 year ago
thuddrff567gg|1 year ago
olyjohn|1 year ago
decimalenough|1 year ago
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|1 year ago
cjrp|1 year ago
AcerbicZero|1 year ago
somerandomqaguy|1 year ago
https://www.msn.com/en-xl/news/other/honda-s-ceo-struggles-t...
dghlsakjg|1 year ago
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.
a2tech|1 year ago
tonymet|1 year ago
Companies are so much more than the consumer experience.
alephnerd|1 year ago
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.
jillesvangurp|1 year ago
Japanese companies like Nissan and Honda are a bit on that losing side. Quite literally; both are struggling with rapidly reducing demand for their now clearly obsolete vehicles and the ramp up of the production of competitive EV replacements for those.
Nissan basically dialed back investments after they got rid of Ghosn and the collaboration with Renault. Which was actually producing some early successes. Like the Nissan Leaf. They could have doubled down on that but they didn't.
Now years later they are basically facing a lot of issues with with an outdated product portfolio that can't keep up with new EVs from others grabbing lots of their market share in most of their key markets.
The reason the Nissan-Honda merger was on the table at all is that it really has gotten that bad for both of them. And of course merging two poorly performing companies doesn't result in a situation where the sum of the parts is larger than the value of the parts.
The reason this deal bounced (and was probably a bad idea to begin with) is that Nissan is in denial about their existential need to adapt to the changing market. EVs are at the center of that.
protocolture|1 year ago
I cant stand Teslas, and tesla look alikes, they feel like sitting inside of an iPad. I think GWM has the right of it. Just pump out hybrids and EV's that feel as much the same as an ICE vehicle as possible. Let the customer decide.
Apocryphon|1 year ago
alecco|1 year ago
[1] https://carnewschina.com/2025/01/13/byd-surpass-toyota-in-ja...
gabruoy|1 year ago
onlypassingthru|1 year ago
The current crop of Chinese electric car makers are all trying to fake it until one of them makes it and the money spigot keeping them afloat will eventually get turned off at some point.[0] Good luck keeping that flashy EV running when the company goes bust.
[0]https://www.businessinsider.com/chinese-evs-losses-widen-des...
formerly_proven|1 year ago
Compare these:
(germany) https://population.un.org/wpp/graphs?loc=276&type=Probabilis...
(alternatively, Europe as a whole) https://population.un.org/wpp/graphs?loc=908&type=Probabilis...
(Japan) https://population.un.org/wpp/graphs?loc=392&type=Probabilis...
(China) https://population.un.org/wpp/graphs?loc=156&type=Probabilis...
to this one
(US) 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.
NalNezumi|1 year ago
As for point 3 it also feels odd. When we check stats in the 3 Asian Tigers, the rat race (and young population sentiment around it) seems like Japan < South Korea <<< China. And usually my friends from those countries usually feel the same way. Lie down movement, all the frustration in SK showed to the world through their entertainment kinda shows this too.
mrguyorama|1 year ago
wil421|1 year ago
owlninja|1 year ago
https://nissan.com/
onlypassingthru|1 year ago
encom|1 year ago
vardump|1 year ago
ggm|1 year ago
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.
numpad0|1 year ago
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.
tahoeskibum|1 year ago
mongol|1 year ago
llm_nerd|1 year ago
They are widely cited as unreliable, poorly built vehicles. My neighbour bought a used model S and the first time he saw us after buying it he came over to justify his purchase ("Got a killer price, etc").
margalabargala|1 year ago
Now that other companies are making EVs that compete directly with Tesla, they aren't reliably best-in-class or best-in-price-point anymore. Compare the Rivian R1T to the Cybertruck, or the Equinox EV to the Model Y, or the Ioniq 6 to the Model 3. The top of the line Model S still doesn't really have any viable competitor.
Tesla has phenomenal battery and motor tech, but their actual car design leaves a lot to be desired, and that's starting to hurt them now that they aren't the only game in town.
And the fact that their CEO throws Nazi salutes at political rallies does not help their market share. In Europe at least that's directly impacting their sales.
solatic|1 year ago
jgon|1 year ago
And maybe your response to all of the above is that Tesla will not be allowed to fail as part of an industrial strategy on the part of America, in which case the question is why would the other domestic manufacturers like Ford and GM be allowed to fall by the wayside? And further, why would Japan not also embark on a similar strategy and prop up their domestic manufacturers?
Any way you look at it, a prediction that China wins out everywhere except for plucky old Tesla moving into the "Apple" position seems like some sort of bizarre partisanship/home team support that doesn't stand up to a moment of scrutiny.
holtkam2|1 year ago
Tesla doesn’t make a car as nice as the Air Sapphire… I don’t think they could if they wanted to. So they’re forced to stay in the less expensive / less quality market segment
eftpotrm|1 year ago
TBH if I were on Tesla's board I'd be pushing for a stock-funded takeover of a company that has an actual plan and ability to deliver it. Merge with (say) Stellantis and they'd have a survival plan.
odiroot|1 year ago
adev_|1 year ago
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-el...
[2] https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/europe...
[3]: https://www.ariyaforums.com/threads/so-many-issues-with-less...
antonkochubey|1 year ago
forgotoldacc|1 year ago
This applies to all Japanese car companies now. They've basically told China, "Please, take the loyal market we've built up these past 40 years. We don't need or want it. We want to die."
It makes no sense.
They're betting on ICE vehicles losing no demand and on "clean" hydrogen completely displacing all demand for electric vehicles entirely.
And a quick rundown on how clean hydrogen energy works in Japan: they burn coal or petroleum to make liquid hydrogen that will replace petroleum-burning vehicles. So instead of using fuel directly, they burn stable fuel that can be used in most cars to make unstable fuel that can't be used in any cars. Smart.
dismalaf|1 year ago
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|1 year ago
tonymet|1 year ago
You can see this in car price explosion and tanking profits.
The result will be consolidation and further automotive inflation.