Japanese car merger

[nzoomed]

I was half expecting this, but has come sooner than I thought. 
I'm not sure if this is going to be a good move or not, looks like Honda will be forced to pay the debt held by Nissan.
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cwy3ljvv93lo

[harm_less]

With reports such as this predicting Nissan are in real danger of going belly up within 12 months it's no surprise that drastic measures are being considered by them. The legacy car makers are facing huge challenges due to both the flood of Chinese (mostly EV) cars competing in their existing markets and also a loss of customer demand and market share in the Chinese domestic market, which is the biggest car sales sector in the world.

The legacy car makers are really struggling with many (e.g. VW, Ford, Mercedes Benz, Stellantis and Toyota) having to take a long hard look at their ongoing economic viability including by shedding employees in large numbers. The Japanese car companies in particular have too long stubbornly persisted with hybrid and hydrogen fuel cell technologies and shunned BEVs, with this particularly being the case for Toyota. Strangely Nissan was the first manufacturer to produce EVs in large volumes with their Leaf but they have failed to keep up with BEV technology with the Leaf now being of limited utility as competing EV manufacturers leave them standing.

The EV landscape is evolving quickly with many owners now recognising the widening use model available from this disruptive technology. In the Australasian market the implementation of the AS/NZS 4777.1:2024 electrical standard including V2G functionality in the next few months is being welcomed by those in the know. This functionality will allow EV owners to use their vehicles as home storage batteries with money to be made by time shifting consumption, PV generation and export to the grid by 'buying cheap and selling high'. The synergies to be had from combining solar and EV ownership will increase significantly as a result.

The personal transport (car) sector will be a very different looking beast within the next 5-10 years as fossil fuel powered vehicles become unviable and the advantages of owning a BEV are widely recognised and adopted.

[harm_less]

An interesting take on the Nissan situation by The Electric Viking. Not someone I usually place much belief in but this seems fairly well researched.

[Video: https://youtu.be/IT9WX3VLkho]

[nzoomed]

Yeah I've been following the electric biking for a while, I know he is a bit biased at times but seems well researched.

As far as Nissan goes, the CEO responsible for the leaf had the right ideas well ahead of everyone else at the time even if the first generation of that vehicle was a lemon, they were a pretty early mover in the market, but he seems to have been pretty corrupt along with the CEO at Stellantis.
Company mismanagement has probably been the biggest issue in these situations.

The only way I see japan getting out of this is to liquidate as many assets as they can that are of no longer of any use, consolidate their assets and production, develop a new EV platform that can roll out across the various brands.
To do this they will need to follow china and Teslas manufacturing methods, introduce innovations such as giga casting, heavy use of robots etc.
The thing they don't have on their side is time.
Meanwhile they have a ton of petrol vehicles they need to move on and recoup the costs.
Perhaps as an interim move they can sell hybrids to buy time until they have EVs ready.
I'm surprised Toyota has rolled out an electric model here, I didn't see that coming.
I see Jaguar has taken a rather unusual move to stop all production for a whole 12 months and roll out their new models then, looks like they will be making some significant investments to refit their factories.

[harm_less]

I read an interesting comment on an EV forum recently that Toyota may only survive as a badge on the front of a Chinese EV (BYD?) in the near future. That could very well be the case for many of the Japanese makes, and along the lines of your comment not only are Nissan and Honda amalgamating but Toyota and Subaru are sharing the EV platform of their respective bZ4X and Solterra models.

[Zurdo]

The only way I see japan getting out of this is to liquidate as many assets as they can that are of no longer of any use, consolidate their assets and production, develop a new EV platform that can roll out across the various brands.

Mitsubishi were ahead on this plan - they sold Fuso some years ago, then dumped the car brand on Nissan...and don't know what will happen to them in this new drama. But Mitsubishi themselves ? Doing just fine without cars and trucks.

[nzoomed]

I read an interesting comment on an EV forum recently that Toyota may only survive as a badge on the front of a Chinese EV (BYD?) in the near future. That could very well be the case for many of the Japanese makes, and along the lines of your comment not only are Nissan and Honda amalgamating but Toyota and Subaru are sharing the EV platform of their respective bZ4X and Solterra models.

Yeah, it appears that Toyota are going to be using BYD's platform in their vehicles so this sounds logical.
Looks like Honda are at long last moving over to hybrids which I guess will buy them some time, looks like the reviews are giving a pretty decent range for a hybrid, but it adds extra complexity to the whole vehicle, they too appear to be using a chinese partner to put together the electric running gear for their EV's which shows what a sad state the company is in if they need to go to China.

The only way I see japan getting out of this is to liquidate as many assets as they can that are of no longer of any use, consolidate their assets and production, develop a new EV platform that can roll out across the various brands.

Mitsubishi were ahead on this plan - they sold Fuso some years ago, then dumped the car brand on Nissan...and don't know what will happen to them in this new drama.  But Mitsubishi themselves ?  Doing just fine without cars and trucks.

Out of all the Japanese brands, I would hope Mitsubishi will come out on top, they are a large company, a bit like Samsung and make electronics among other things so should not have any issues with electric motors and inverters used to drive an AC motor.
They even make the large IGBT transistors used in EV's, ive got a pair of Mitsubishi CM300 IGBT's in my solid state tesla coil I built, these things are pushed well beyond their limits and are running just fine, so there's that!

[Zurdo]

Mitsubishi is a large company, but the car division is not, it's part of the Renault Nissan Mitsubishi alliance. Mitsubishi themselves have very little to do with it, and now Mitsubishi's are based on Nissans/Renaults.

[nzoomed]

Mitsubishi is a large company, but the car division is not, it's part of the Renault Nissan Mitsubishi alliance. Mitsubishi themselves have very little to do with it, and now Mitsubishi's are based on Nissans/Renaults.

I never realized they got involved with Nissan, sounds like this happened a while back.
I think that japan has too many brands competing with each other by the looks, I think we might end up seeing a badge engineering business model emerge out of this.

[harm_less]

This (paywalled) Bloomberg article describes the difficulties Japanese car makers are facing in transitioning to EV production. An interesting read.

[harm_less]

More from Bloomberg relating to the now apparently abandoned merger between Nissan and Honda.