$ 50 billion fusion He was dismissed between the Honda and Nissan, who would establish one of the world’s largest car groups.
In December, they stated that the second Japanese and third largest car manufacturers said they were investigating plans to combine their operations to share the costs and develop new generation vehicles together. Both companies said on Thursday that they were leaving before the interviews.
The Swift conversion It underlines the growing recognition in the field that large automotive alliances that have often relied on in the past to create a scale and increase the market share, do not have to be an answer to cars trying to catch up with rapid technological changes.
Traditional car manufacturers in Japan, the United States and Europe are facing growing competition of newcomers, such as Tesla and China, who have introduced a commanding lead in electric vehicles and technologies that allow semi -autonomous driving and remote updates.
As the automotive industry moves towards vehicles that resemble “bike robots”, merging two giants to try to catch up, “only car makers who came back to what they knew rather than accept the change,” Lucinda said Guthrie, Mergermarket head, and data provider.
For example, Ford Motor and Volkswagen joined a few years ago to work on electric vehicles and autonomous driving. The companies eventually closed their car initiative and gained few benefits from working on electric vehicles.
Honda had a partnership with General Motors and is currently selling two electric sports utility vehicles, Honda Prolog and Acura ZDX, which are produced by GM, but in 2023 the company said they did not exceed their partnerships beyond these two models.
Even at the beginning of interviews with Nissan, Honda’s best executives faced internal resistance to merging with another car. Nissan is restructuring His operations after a significant decline in profit and Honda managers feared the financial health of Nissan. They also questioned the potential benefits of the agreement.
Honda eventually proposed a plan to see how Nissan became his subsidiary of the company. Nissan refused the offer because it was different from earlier ideas to create a holding company with both brands as subsidiaries. Nissan’s leadership felt that the proposal was underestimated by the company.
Mrs. Guthrie of Mergermarket said she thought that Nissan could benefit from the search for a new partner, potentially outside the traditional automotive empire.
For Nissan and Honda, “the pressures they face would not change with the merger,” said Mrs. Guthrie. “Either you accept the future, or you are sticking to what you know,” she added. “Maybe the breakup will be what it will be.”
One possible suitor for Nissan is the Taiwanese electronic giant Foxconn. Young Liu, chairman of Foxconn, said on Wednesday that the company would consider buying a share in Nissan, although the preference would be easy to work with the car.
