Summary
- Nissan’s pride and denial hindered merger talks, sources say
- Honda pushed Nissan for deeper cuts to jobs, factory capacity, sources say
- Nissan unwilling to consider factory closures, sources say
- Honda’s proposal to make Nissan a subsidiary caused tensions, sources say
- Honda realized Nissan has nothing to offer them
Sources say.
Honda is better off without them.
Personally think Nissan is better positioned for the EV future and Honda is likely to be the one that needed this more. 🤷♂️
Nissan could have been better positioned for EV but they didn’t bother actually doing anything with the Leaf for a decade.
Kinda like how they could have been a high performance brand with the GTR if they bothered to actually do any more development on it for the past decade.
The leaf was an objectively terrible Eevee that probably set the industry back a few years.
Autocorrect changed it to Eevee and I think it works.
Disagree, they are exactly the type of EV we should be building: inexpensive, enough range for around town, pretty dependable. The first couple model years had crappy range, but the later ones were fine.
What Nissan needed was to expand the EV product line. Ideas:
- make the Leaf cheaper - 150 mile range, look into cheaper chemistries; should be the cheapest EV on the road; prize prioritize reliability and cost
- make a sports car that you want to drive - this is your flagship - prioritize speed and style
- make something in between the two (fast, but also practical) - what most people will get; compete directly with Model 3
Don’t compete on range at all, that’s R&D you don’t want to deal with. Just make great cars for urban and suburban use.
They weren’t dependable is the problem. There were a lot of problems with early deterioration of the battery, supposedly from not having very good temperature control on the battery pack.
Range anxiety is not an illegitimate concern though. Sure I probably don’t need that capacity more than maybe once every year but what about when I do need it?
How am I supposed to be able to drive halfway across the country to see my family every Christmas if my car only has 150 miles of range and it takes 4 hours to fully recharge. That’s going to turn a 3-hour road trip into 10 hours if we have to stop and wait for it to recharge. My problem with the leaf was that it had hardly any range at all so that problem was massively exacerbated.
It’s great in a multi-car household where the other car is something with a bit more range but as you’re only vehicle you better hope that no family emergency crop up.
To be clear I would have the same issues with an ICE only had 150 miles of range but in some ways that would be better because it “recharges” faster.
Good
More Nissan for me!
But yeah, Nissan seems to be making some nicer cars lately. Hopefully they can shake off the bad stigma gained by Goghn’s cost cutting and bad cvts. Plus, Nissan actually makes electric cars, something Honda, I don’t believe, has even attempted yet. They had a sweet deal with GM, and they dropped the partnership. Nissans got the Leaf and Aria, and there’s rumors of them using Mitsubishi’s hybrid system in the upcoming years.
Honda has made both the “e” in 2020 and “e:Ny1” in 2023, both seem like decent BEVs in their price segment.
They were one of the few, if only, remaining manufacturers in the US that produced a subcompact car. Yet they are getting rid of both the Versa and Altima.
I hate how everybody bloated up their fleets with crossovers and SUVs…
I hate how everybody bloated up their fleets with crossovers and SUVs…
While I generally think regulations are a net positive, the cafe regulations treating SUVs as trucks for minimum mileage is the main reason for the ever increasing vehicle size and shift to massive SUVs dominating the roads.
They should be less punishing for smaller cars and more punishing for large vehicles designed for passengers and commuting.
