- Nissan's new CEO is "very open" to partnerships and confirmed that the company is still talking to Honda.
- Honda and Nissan are working on individual model collaborations, and one executive suggested they could work together on large SUVs.
- Nissan's old CEO resigning may open the door to further merger talks, too.
Nissan and Honda's initial merger attempt may have collapsed, but that doesn't mean the two auto firms are walking away from the table. The shape and extent of future collaborations are still to be determined, but Nissan executives want to make one thing clear.
"We never stopped" talking to Honda, Nissan Chief Performance Officer Guillaume Cartier told reporters during a media roundtable in Japan. Both companies are still actively working on partnerships together, and potential new avenues of collaboration.
"We are working every week with them because we have a lot of projects with them," Ivan Espinosa, the company's incoming CEO, said. The two companies agreed way back in March 2024 to study ways to collaborate on EV projects, software and AI. Those talks continue today, and executives signaled that they were bearing fruit.
Large SUVs would be a natural collaboration point, Nissan Chief Planning Officer for North America Ponz Pandikuthira told reporters.
"The conversations with Honda, [Espinosa] was very clear with all of you, still are continuing. They never stopped. We're thinking of doing individual programs with them. So just think—I'm using Honda as a hypothetical example here because that's a real conversation going on, it's not that any of this has been finalized," Pandikuthira said.
"But if you do the next generation of our large SUVs, that has to replace a Pathfinder, a Murano, a QX60 and a QX65," he continued. "Four vehicles. And you know those same vehicles have counterparts at Honda. So if you do develop a common platform with them, instead of maybe just 200,000 units, you're immediately developing it for 200,000 units. You can see how very quickly you can get variable costs under control."
That's essential for Nissan, which is currently facing a financial crisis.
"We don't have a cash problem," CEO Espinosa told InsideEVs during the roundtable. He noted that Nissan has about 1 trillion yen—about $6.7 billion USD at today's rates—on hand. Instead, the company needs to fix its "cash flow generation" problem.
It is spending too much money and making too little, essentially, so it needs to boost profits while cutting costs. Sharing costs with Renault and Mitsubishi already helps. Collaboration with Honda could help, too. But if cutting costs and the company's upcoming product offensives don't fix the cash flow problem quickly, it may still need a partner to merge with or acquire it.
"I would say for partnerships in general, we are very open," Espinosa said. "The future of the industry is going to be very interesting, and it's clear that the name of the game in the future is how to build efficient partnerships that add value to your company. It could be in many shapes and forms."
Who could come to the rescue? Taiwanese manufacturing giant and Apple supplier Foxconn has shown interest. But it's unclear whether Japanese regulators would like the idea of a Taiwanese company with such a major footprint in mainland China to take over. Espinosa declined to comment on any political issues with that. Foxconn, for its part, says that it was looking for "not acquisition but cooperation" with Nissan, per Nikkei. The other obvious contender: Honda. The company walked away from merger talks, but the Financial Times reported that it would be interested in resuming talks on one condition: The resignation Nissan CEO Makoto Uchida.
That ended up happening. So starting April 1, Espinosa takes over as CEO. His approach seems different from Uchida's, who was aghast at the idea of Nissan being a junior partner in the merger. Espinosa seems less precious.
"I have a no-taboo approach to partnerships," Espinosa said. In other words: Anything is on the table.
Contact the author: Mack.Hogan@insideevs.com.
