Nissan and Mitsubishi aren't in the best shape. Both brands have been struggling to gain or regain market share in the U.S. for some time, and the alliance they're part of has been marked with years of chaos, infighting and uncertainty over the future.
But as the industry marches forward with new propulsion tech, the two brands have a chance to reinvent themselves—so as long as they can overcome their image problems with American buyers. Now, they're getting a boost from a teammate in much better shape, Honda, and the resulting trio are aiming to give the Japanese auto industry some much-needed home runs in the EV era.
Welcome back to Critical Materials, your daily roundup for all things EV and automotive tech. Today, we're chatting about the newly announced Honda-Nissan-Mitsubishi partnership, General Motors' changing EV timetable, and Tesla's planned obsolescence of Hardware 3. Let's jump in.
30%: Honda and Nissan Welcome Mitsubishi Into Its Joint New EV Partnership
Mitsubishi will join Honda and Nissan's existing partnership to work together on EVs and related tech. Together, the three automakers will work together to build a framework that will be used to electrify their respective fleets in the future. Executives say this "trilateral partnership" will help bring unique technologies, efficiencies, and business opportunities to the brands.
It's hard not to acknowledge the elephant in the room—namely that it feels odd Honda, a global automotive powerhouse, is working closely with Mitsubishi and Nissan, both of which have been struggling to keep their heads above water as of late.
On Honda's end, it seems natural that the brand would try to find a replacement for the dissolved GM partnership that went belly-up just months before it signed its agreement with Nissan. Honda's Prologue EV uses GM's Ultium platform and the two automakers were supposed to make an affordable EV platform together, but more recently, Honda's decided to go its own way long-term.
Meanwhile, Nissan is in a death spiral. The brands profits dropped 99% last quarter in an effort to convince Americans to buy its cars. Mitsubishi is also struggling to gain traction in the U.S., so cool concepts aside, perhaps it's betting on the partnership to bring the marque back to relevance.
Honda CEO Toshihiro Mibe called the trilateral agreement a "strong weapon" in the upcoming EV war. The brands anticipate 2030 will be a significant milestone for the EV industry, which is the major reason that the brands are preparing for this partnership now. Japan as a whole is pretty behind the curve on EVs and software-defined cars compared to China.
"I wouldn't call right now a peacetime, it's contingency," said Mibe. "Just doing the same thing is not going to give us global competitiveness. In that sense, this cooperation between the three will be a strong weapon as we compete in this environment."
In addition to the strategic partnership between all three automakers, Honda and Nissan announced that the two brands would also have a separate collaboration to jointly develop software-defined vehicles in order to "enhance the value" of its cars and services.
This second partnership was born out of three core pillars: Automotive software platforms, core EV components, and complementary products. Using this foundation, the brands expect to invest in joint research, commonization of powertrains, battery supply, and other areas.
Mibe says that speed is one of the partnership's top priorities. Not only must the automakers move on this plan quickly, but they expect the effort to speed up development time between vehicle. Together, the two will standardize on technologies like System on Chip design, electrical and electronic architecture, software and data platform, and development environment. This gives them a competitive edge to quickly build out new vehicle features like autonomous driving features and energy management (like vehicle-to-load, vehicle-to-home, and even vehicle-to-vehicle power sharing).
60%: Despite Delays, GM Swears It's Still Interested In EVs, Really
EV adoption is stagnating. Maybe. Or, wait, is it only a Tesla problem? Actually, you're being lied to and EVs haven't stalled at all.
The current tide of the market can be a bit confusing, especially with headlines reading every which way. One thing that is certain is that automakers are adjusting their timeline for a very rapidly changing market, and that includes GM.
GM shook up the industry a bit last week when it announced that it would delay opening the Orion Assembly plant in Michigan, which is a bit of a blow to the build-out of the Silverado EV.
Oh, Buick's first EV that was due to debut this year? You can forget about that for a while too. In fact, let's completely disregard GM's target of one million EVs produced by 2025, because—according to GM—the "market [is] not developing" as expected.
This all seems a bit rocky, but GM wants to set the record straight: they're not worried about it. The automaker isn't abandoning any of its plans, but it might shift the timeline a little bit. Gerald Johnson, GM's Executive Vice President of Global Manufacturing and Sustainability, explains:
"We're still confident in those investments, but we do have to be agile enough to time and/or re-time some of our startup dates so that we are hitting the market with the right product at the right time frame," said Johnson in an interview with Automotive News. "The plans that we laid out a year ago, we have to be able to look at the market today and make adjustments and act accordingly. I think that's smart business."
Johnson went on to explain that GM plans to let consumers help guide its timeline and mixes of products across its markets. The automaker specifically allowed for enough flexibility across its brand portfolio that it can adjust its mix of both ICE and EV offerings to better fit what the market is calling for at any given time. And for now, that happens to mean slowing its rollout of pure battery-powered cars.
To be clear, GM isn't the only automaker scaling back or adjusting its EV plans. Mercedes decided to keep making combustion engines. Ford reportedly cut battery orders. Porsche announced last week that it would scale back its EV ambitions. Volkswagen delayed the ID.7 launch, and Audi even considered ending production of the Q8 E-Tron "early." Volvo is also seeing more of a future for hybrids than it initially anticiapted.
It's an industry-wide problem, erm—adjustment—that automakers are working to fine-tune.
"We can control capital spend. We can control execution and timing. We can't control demand," said Johnson. "That, we have to respond and react to."
90%: Tesla Puts Hardware 3 Owners On Notice
Tesla CEO Elon Musk has been absolutely fascinated with the prospects of AI and automation as of late. In fact, it's arguable that Musk is more interested in AI and robotics than he is in cars. That has led to an extreme push for more powerful computing power in Tesla's vehicles, especially as engineers are working to ready the automaker's driverless robotaxi in the coming months.
At the core of this tech is Tesla Hardware 5, the latest version of its in-car computer used to infer its Autopilot and Full Self-Driving models into usable steering, acceleration, and braking decisions to be used on the road. HW5—or as Musk likes to now call it, AI5—has around 10 times the compute capacity as HW4 and is set to begin rolling out starting next year.
Tesla first started shipping HW4 in January 2023 beginning with the Model S and X. Lesser models began getting the hardware around mid-year. Given Musk's timetable of HW5 release in 2025 (and volume production in late 2026), HW4 will have had a lifespan of between 36 and 48 months, which is right around the same cycle as HW3.
Longevity isn't the issue for Tesla in this circumstance. Based on the communications from the CEO, HW3 is nearing its limits of Tesla's Full Self-Driving software, which means that owners of vehicles currently less than one model year old may soon be locked out of receiving the latest and greatest FSD features—and that they may not be an "appreciating asset" as Musk once claimed in 2019 if it isn't capable of being added to Telsa's upcoming autonomous ride-hailing app.
It's hard to ignore that Tesla may also be pushing this tech to market for new business opportunities.
Tesla is set to reveal its robotaxi in October. Musk reportedly moved the project into high gear earlier this year after being enamored with the visuals of the vehicle when chief designer Franz von Holzhausen put models of the cheap $25,000 EV and robotaxi side-by-side in the Tesla design studio. The cheaper model was then put on the back burner and robotaxi was given priority.
Musk has also wanted to turn its cars into mobile data centers on wheels. I've explained how this could work before, but more compute is needed for it to be viable—that's where AI5 comes into play.
100%: What Would Make You Reconsider A Brand?
We've all had those bands that we've sworn off because of our history with them. Maybe you bought a lemon in the past, or a certain brand's CEO swung way towards the opposite of the political spectrum and you're embarrassed to be seen in the driver's seat. Since corporations are people here in the U.S., it's only natural for them to change.
I don't consider myself to be loyal to any one single brand for my cars. I've run the gamut of marques and have had my fair share of American, German, Japanese, and Korean cars. Maybe I crave variety, but I feel it important to give each car a fair shot. That's not to say that I haven't sworn of owning a brand—but it's important to revisit a car over its own merits.
Plus, brands can change over time. For example, it seems wild that Mitsubishi could potentially launch something as cool as the D:X stateside when, in the same breath, one could talk about how the history of the i-MIEV.
So it comes down to our question of the day: what would it take for you to reconsider that one car brand that you've sworn off buying anything from?
Contact the author: rob.stumpf@insideevs.com
