Honda and Nissan to Merge?! What Does This Mean for EVs and ICEs? 🤔 | Lasfit Small Talk

[LASFIT]

Recent news suggests that Honda and Nissan might be discussing a potential merger. Many speculate this bold move is tied to the rapid rise of electric vehicles (EVs). Some articles even claim that the merger could be a strategic effort to counter the growing dominance of EVs in the market.

As two iconic brands that have long been leaders in internal combustion engine vehicles (ICEs), this potential partnership has everyone talking. Is it a game-changing strategy to take on the EV market? Or is it simply a way to stay relevant in a rapidly changing industry?

What’s Your Take?
*Are EVs truly the future, or do ICEs still hold strong advantages?
*What are the biggest strengths and weaknesses of EVs and ICEs in your opinion?
*If Honda and Nissan merge, could they become serious competitors in the EV space?
Let’s hear your thoughts! ?? Whether you’re team EV or team ICE—or somewhere in between—we’d love to know where you stand in this debate.

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[AzScorpion]

*Are EVs truly the future?

Is it April Fools day already?

 

[got3fords]

Mitsubishi might also join talks with Nissan and Honda. No, EV's are not the future.

 

[Canadian Ranger]

It's got nothing to do with the future of EV or ICE vehicles. It's about the all-mighty dollar, making more of it or saving more of it......that's why companies do anything.

 

[Friday yet?]

They can package it all they want. Bottom line Nissan has been floundering for a while. Honda is saving their ass.

Read one article talking about some branch of the Japanese government quietly pushing the deal. Trying to look out for Japanese companies and keep Nissan in the game. Clearly I don’t know but it certainly makes sense.

 

[Grumpaw]

So, would it be Honsan or Nissoda ???

 

[Frenchy]

If you ask me, it's been posted all over the place on Nissan Groups. My take on it? I don't see Nissan going anywhere especially with Toyota having all its faults lately. Will there be good out of the Merger? I'm sure there will be. Will there be some kind of bad things? Probably. I know that the recent CEO that got a nice trip to Prison wasn't a help. I also know it isn't helping that Nissan can't seem to get their own CVT to work correctly when every other Manufacturer is using the same CVT's and not having the problems. Perhaps Honda will help with that.

All in all I just know that Nissan isn't going anywhere.

 

[Blue Streak]

So, would it be Honsan or Nissoda ???

I like the sound of Honissanda. Sounds more Japanese.

 

[rang19ca]

This is pretty much an effort to bail out a cash poor Nissan Motor Corporation. They were on the way to failure with all their debt.

 

[NotBudule2]

Not sure if EV's are the future but my son just bought a Civic Hybrid and I believe it may be the future, his anyway...
I love it , if you just creep around, it's all green on the dash untill you need more , then the engine starts somehow , but only to run the generator (that's what it said) then if you need everything, the engine also runs the wheels ( that's what it said ) I opened the hood and it's from the future with big orange hoses going to and from, it certainly is nifty and fun to drive !

 

[GhostStrykre]

i think Honda sat back and waited for the time to pounce. I distinctly remember reading years ago that the Japanese government was not happy about the way things were going with Nissan under Ghosn's leadership. IIRC, Ghosn was big on fleet sales to prop up Nissan's numbers following their weird merger with Renault in France. Ghosn did whatever it was that he did and the Japanese government struck when he arrived for a set-up meeting in Tokyo. Arresting him and such and leading to his escape via a cello box from his house arrest. Fun story.

Anyway, since Ghosn Nissan has seemed rudderless despite making some solid developmental strides in EV and Hybrid battery tech. So in comes Honda, more favored by the Japanese government, and regarded as a company that was a bit slow to develop EVs and Hybrids compared to industry. So Honda has an opportunity here to bolster their own EV and Hybrid development, gain access to Nissan's far more mature body on frame designs (the Armada, Titan, etc.), and some legit turbo engine tech Nissan has been working on.

Nissan's transmissions were made by Jatco. I'm not sure if Jatco is Nissan owned, or what. Google AI (lol) says it's a spin off of Nissan. Whatever that means. All I know is that Honda has a chance to jettison Nissan's transmission and use the other good parts of what the company was producing. Honda, as far as I've read, is to be the business leader amongst the Honda-Nissan-Mistubishi merger. I think Nissan and Mitsubishi gain stability from Honda in all of this as they were losing ground rapidly. I gotta wonder, is a Honda Lancer Evo in the future?? lol

I do think this merger is related to dollars and marketshare and all that, as mentioned above, but I also think it's partially motivated by future drivetrain tech. Toyota makes something like 9% profit on each vehicle sold (industry leading rate) while Honda and Nissan are sub-5% (though interestingly, Honda's motorcycle division makes a whopping 18% per moto sold -- these are averages). I haven't looked at their financials, but I'm guessing Toyota is far more positioned to invest in R&D for future drivetrains than Honda/Nissan/Mitsubishi and the latter collective knows it.

I base this on my understanding that Honda's new Prologue EV is actually a GM powertrain. It's buying Honda time while they develop their own in-house solid state battery tech to power their future EVs. Part of what is going on here in Ohio is their EV plan. I really think this whole merger is about competing with Toyota both financially and technologically.

It's sort of like the US Defense industry. Small businesses are not developing cutting edge spacecraft. Maybe they work as subcontractors, but they don't have the resources to build next generation stuff. Only the big dogs do (and they can only do so in a questionable manner, at that). So I think this bolsters my stance that Honda and Nissan feel like they have to merge to compete technologically.

Sorry about the long post, folks. It's a really interesting topic. I'm kind of excited to see where it goes.

As for the chatter on EV tech above, i think it's easy to say ICE > EV right now at the end of 2024, but I vehemently disagree with the notion of writing them off for the future. Solid state batteries are the "next generation" of batteries for vehicles. They charge faster, and hold more of a charge. The tech for solid state batteries has been around for a number of years. The auto industry is just now starting to work on incorporating it. There have been a number of battery tech breakthroughs just in the last 6 months that it'll be years til we see at the consumer level.

EV batteries in 2030 will be vastly better than EV batteries in 2025. We'll see how ICE is doing then.

 

[Frenchy]

i think Honda sat back and waited for the time to pounce. I distinctly remember reading years ago that the Japanese government was not happy about the way things were going with Nissan under Ghosn's leadership. IIRC, Ghosn was big on fleet sales to prop up Nissan's numbers following their weird merger with Renault in France. Ghosn did whatever it was that he did and the Japanese government struck when he arrived for a set-up meeting in Tokyo. Arresting him and such and leading to his escape via a cello box from his house arrest. Fun story.

Anyway, since Ghosn Nissan has seemed rudderless despite making some solid developmental strides in EV and Hybrid battery tech. So in comes Honda, more favored by the Japanese government, and regarded as a company that was a bit slow to develop EVs and Hybrids compared to industry. So Honda has an opportunity here to bolster their own EV and Hybrid development, gain access to Nissan's far more mature body on frame designs (the Armada, Titan, etc.), and some legit turbo engine tech Nissan has been working on.

Nissan's transmissions were made by Jatco. I'm not sure if Jatco is Nissan owned, or what. Google AI (lol) says it's a spin off of Nissan. Whatever that means. All I know is that Honda has a chance to jettison Nissan's transmission and use the other good parts of what the company was producing. Honda, as far as I've read, is to be the business leader amongst the Honda-Nissan-Mistubishi merger. I think Nissan and Mitsubishi gain stability from Honda in all of this as they were losing ground rapidly. I gotta wonder, is a Honda Lancer Evo in the future?? lol

I do think this merger is related to dollars and marketshare and all that, as mentioned above, but I also think it's partially motivated by future drivetrain tech. Toyota makes something like 9% profit on each vehicle sold (industry leading rate) while Honda and Nissan are sub-5% (though interestingly, Honda's motorcycle division makes a whopping 18% per moto sold -- these are averages). I haven't looked at their financials, but I'm guessing Toyota is far more positioned to invest in R&D for future drivetrains than Honda/Nissan/Mitsubishi and the latter collective knows it.

I base this on my understanding that Honda's new Prologue EV is actually a GM powertrain. It's buying Honda time while they develop their own in-house solid state battery tech to power their future EVs. Part of what is going on here in Ohio is their EV plan. I really think this whole merger is about competing with Toyota both financially and technologically.

It's sort of like the US Defense industry. Small businesses are not developing cutting edge spacecraft. Maybe they work as subcontractors, but they don't have the resources to build next generation stuff. Only the big dogs do (and they can only do so in a questionable manner, at that). So I think this bolsters my stance that Honda and Nissan feel like they have to merge to compete technologically.

Sorry about the long post, folks. It's a really interesting topic. I'm kind of excited to see where it goes.

As for the chatter on EV tech above, i think it's easy to say ICE > EV right now at the end of 2024, but I vehemently disagree with the notion of writing them off for the future. Solid state batteries are the "next generation" of batteries for vehicles. They charge faster, and hold more of a charge. The tech for solid state batteries has been around for a number of years. The auto industry is just now starting to work on incorporating it. There have been a number of battery tech breakthroughs just in the last 6 months that it'll be years til we see at the consumer level.

EV batteries in 2030 will be vastly better than EV batteries in 2025. We'll see how ICE is doing then.

Jatco is a Nissan Company. Part of why I stated above that many use the same CVT as Nissan and yet Nissan doesn't have issues. The only question is how that may or may not change.

As for the good old Partnership that Nissan and Renault had, it was Renault that went to Nissan thanks to the introduction of the VQ Series Engine in the mid 90's. Also it was thanks to Renault that saved Nissan in the 90's because Nissan was dumping so much into the 300ZX and loosing money(thanks to the ugly body design it wasn't selling well). Renault had Nissan stop producing it and it certainly helped at that time.

As for the old CEO, yeah he is special for sure. I certainly prefer the current one over the previous one

 

[NotBudule2]

Well I'm certainly not ready for the future, the Civic Hybrid has "remote start" so I tried it, held down button and lights came on ,dash lit up but I never herd it start , wtf ? Tried a couple more times but same results , turns out it WAS running as far as the car was concerned(things were warming up as needed and it said "Ready") it just didn't need the engine to do it, somehow, maybe... I really dont know but it felt like the future to me and i want one for my Ranger...

 

[GhostStrykre]

Jatco is a Nissan Company. Part of why I stated above that many use the same CVT as Nissan and yet Nissan doesn't have issues. The only question is how that may or may not change.

As for the good old Partnership that Nissan and Renault had, it was Renault that went to Nissan thanks to the introduction of the VQ Series Engine in the mid 90's. Also it was thanks to Renault that saved Nissan in the 90's because Nissan was dumping so much into the 300ZX and loosing money(thanks to the ugly body design it wasn't selling well). Renault had Nissan stop producing it and it certainly helped at that time.

As for the old CEO, yeah he is special for sure. I certainly prefer the current one over the previous one

above you said nissan is the only one that is having issues. i'm assuming it was a minor typo, and if so yeah i agree. very strange nissan has all the CVT woes. they're notoriously hated lol. meanwhile i just found out even Honda is adding CVTs... subaru is loaded up with CVTs... meanwhile i avoid CVTs like the plague lol.

i'm rooting for nissan. i wish them the best because on occasion they do really cool stuff that is probably good for the industry overall. sort of like mazda, but cooler.

side note and off topic: mazda is quietly cranking out some really solid products and no one talks about them much, imo.

 

[Frenchy]

above you said nissan is the only one that is having issues. i'm assuming it was a minor typo, and if so yeah i agree. very strange nissan has all the CVT woes. they're notoriously hated lol. meanwhile i just found out even Honda is adding CVTs... subaru is loaded up with CVTs... meanwhile i avoid CVTs like the plague lol.

i'm rooting for nissan. i wish them the best because on occasion they do really cool stuff that is probably good for the industry overall. sort of like mazda, but cooler.

side note and off topic: mazda is quietly cranking out some really solid products and no one talks about them much, imo.

I'm pretty sure it comes down to how Nissan has done the Programming. Everyone else using the CVT and not having an issue would point to that

On paper the CVT is a good Transmission for the correct applications. That said I prefer a good tried and true Jatco 5 Speed Automatic that is in my 2012 Frontier as we speak. The nice thing is, it is very easy to service compared to most other Automatics.

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