The potential Honda/Nissan merger is dead for now, primarily because Honda wanted Nissan to become a subsidiary, and Nissan found those terms unacceptable. Now, Automotive News reports another poison pill from Honda that contributed to the deal getting scrapped. The bigger automaker demanded that Nissan abandon its e-Power series hybrid system and adopt Honda’s hybrid technology instead.
“It is obvious that we are a little better than Nissan when it comes to [hybrids],” a senior Honda official told Japanese news outlet Yomiuri Shimbun. This point is hard to argue against since Honda has hybrids available in multiple mainstream segments in North America, and Nissan has none.
Nissan’s e-Power system has been around in Japan since 2016. It never came to the U.S. market because it’s specifically designed for small vehicles in stop-and-go city traffic and isn’t as efficient in highway driving. It also adds to the cost of small cars, and Americans tend not to want to pay big bucks for compact hybrids from mainstream brands (sound familiar?).
As a result, Nissan is the biggest automaker in the U.S. market with zero hybrids in its USDM lineup, not even mild hybrids. Toyota is the longtime leader in hybrid sales in the U.S., and Honda is catching up by deeply integrating hybrid powertrains into the model ranges of popular vehicles like the CR-V, Accord, and Civic while still offering non-hybrid options for all of them. Nissan also faces tough hybrid competition from Kia and Hyundai.
Nissan is addressing the highway efficiency problem with the third generation of e-Power and plans to launch a hybrid Rogue in the States in 2027, which happens to be the year that GM plug-in hybrid models should arrive in North America. However, according to Honda’s demands, a merger would likely mean marketing Nissan models with its competitor’s hybrid powertrains.
Since Nissan has sunk more than $2 billion into e-Power, it understandably wants to stick with its home-grown hybrid tech. An unnamed source told Automotive News that the battle over hybrids “was a clash of egos.”
As for the future of a potential merger of Japanese auto giants, Honda says it’s still open to it with one small caveat. It wants Nissan CEO Makoto Uchida gone. Since this is unlikely to happen any time soon, the merger is effectively dead.
Comments
Turns out Honda wanted way too much. I hope its reputation is scarred for a good, long time. It isn’t what it used to be and needs a nice big sales hit and negative media attention.
Honda is always screwing everyone. They Just finished screwing GM over EV technologu
Don’t blame Honda.
People only take advantage of you if you let them.
Honda should look to become part of GM or merge with Ford. Both of those companies compliment each other well with Honda’s portfolio. Honda has mediocre quality, but has a good reputation with US consumers. Plus, GM has good sales volume in South America and China where Honda does not. Inversely the same can be said about Japan.
Joe G,
I don’t know about the present, but years ago between Ford and GM they both owned stock shares in most Asian and European automotive manufacturers. When I say stock shares I mean over 50%, so between Ford and GM they actually own most of those companies.
It could be something you can Google, if it interests you.
There is a lot of legal gobbledygook that goes along with a lot of that stuff.
At one time long ago General Motors was sued for being a monopoly. The government made GM run all of their divisions separately like they were all different companies. That wound up costing GM a ton of extra money with all the unneeded redundancy.
Does GM have a hybrid in the US? I thought no, it was either EV or ICE, am I wrong?
Not since the 2019 Volt. As the story says, new hybrids are expected for 2027.
They are probably counting the Corvette E-Ray, which is really a “performance” hybrid, definitely NOT a plug-in hybrid, and avoids being considered just a “mild hybrid” because the vehicle can operate on battery only – at low speeds and low range.
But I’m pretty sure that is the ONLY GM Hybrid of any kind. . .in North America. . .presently.