Nissan and Honda plan to enter into negotiations for a merger to better compete in the rapidly changing automotive industry, the Nikkei newspaper reported.
That sounds like a disaster for Honda. Nissan doesn’t hardly have anything to offer except supply/sales volume. Honda beats them on engine tech, transmission tech, chassis tech, basically everything. Honda has lots to lose by taking on their mess, and Nissan doesn’t.
I don’t know about in Japan, but in the US, Nissan has a sub-$30k EV with the Leaf and Honda does not. So that would be worth something to them considering California is trying to phase out ICE cars.
That’s still only a single model that is <8% of Nissan’s already abysmal US sales volume. Nissan’s massive pile of garbage that fills up the rest of portfolio (and institutional problems behind the scenes) is absolutely NOT worth dealing with for the technology in a single model like that, even if it is “necessary” to offer to ensure compliance eith wishy washy regulatory soon-to-be’s. They would be much better off clean-slating their own, EV tech is significantly easier to develop compared to new ICE designs and if anyone is capable of that, it’s Honda.
Except the chevy volt is in the same sub 30k category and they handily beat the pants off of the leaf in range. The leaf only gets a meager 149 miles per charge. The volt can go about 100 miles further and has the ability to charge faster.
Why are you giving a question mark? The only leaf under $30k is the base with a 149 mile range. The sv plus with the 212 range is like $37k. That’s $10,000 more than a volt and still like 30 or 40 miles less range.
Also, yes, 149 would be enough for most people who never want a vehicleto take out of town, but you’re leaving out a huge amount of problems with a range like that. First, if you’re going to charge it every day it means you better own a house and garage to keep it in and charge, because charging stations for 45 minutes every other day or so would be terrible to deal with. Then if you live in a place where it gets really cold that mileage will be hacked down to about 110 miles. Plus, your battery will not last nearly as long if you have to use most of its range all the time and always have to charge it up to 100% full. Charging an EV up to just 80% or so capacity and recharging it at about 20% will literally double the lifespan of the battery. A small capacity EV like that won’t last nearly as long as one with a bigger battery.
It is a big, untapped market but it’s not a big market for the Leaf. Tesla sold 3x more Model 3 in the last year alone than Nissan has sold in the entire 14 year production run of the Leaf. It’s a hot mess.
I absolutely agree with you there. For consumer space this merger doesn’t make sense for Honda. For Nissan share holder, this is fantastic… Only thing I can think of is Nissan has some EV tech that Honda could use but that’s quite the stretch. Nissan actually jumped into EV relatively early but they didn’t iterate on it quickly enough to matter. Honda has been dragging their feet on EV and they both completely missed the boat on bridge tech offering like plug in hybrid. This merger isn’t going to do anything to fix that.
Since Nissan is now a low end brand and Honda is moving more towards premium side perhaps being together would cover the market segments better. The merger absolutely does nothing for the high end market though.
The one thing that I don’t know anything about is the commercial market domestically in Japan. Perhaps Nissan has good market share which Honda could gain from this merger. Maybe someone could chime in on this.
That sounds like a disaster for Honda. Nissan doesn’t hardly have anything to offer except supply/sales volume. Honda beats them on engine tech, transmission tech, chassis tech, basically everything. Honda has lots to lose by taking on their mess, and Nissan doesn’t.
I don’t know about in Japan, but in the US, Nissan has a sub-$30k EV with the Leaf and Honda does not. So that would be worth something to them considering California is trying to phase out ICE cars.
https://insideevs.com/news/744407/ev-california-gas-car-sales-ban-2035/
That’s still only a single model that is <8% of Nissan’s already abysmal US sales volume. Nissan’s massive pile of garbage that fills up the rest of portfolio (and institutional problems behind the scenes) is absolutely NOT worth dealing with for the technology in a single model like that, even if it is “necessary” to offer to ensure compliance eith wishy washy regulatory soon-to-be’s. They would be much better off clean-slating their own, EV tech is significantly easier to develop compared to new ICE designs and if anyone is capable of that, it’s Honda.
It’s a single model and virtually the only model of EV less affluent Americans can afford. That’s a huge market.
Except the chevy volt is in the same sub 30k category and they handily beat the pants off of the leaf in range. The leaf only gets a meager 149 miles per charge. The volt can go about 100 miles further and has the ability to charge faster.
? I own a leaf and get 215 miles per charge… Plus for most peoples the 149 on the base model is fine to go to work and back daily
2020 leaf sv plus owner here. Range is 212 officially but when my car is full charge it tells me 215 iirc
Why are you giving a question mark? The only leaf under $30k is the base with a 149 mile range. The sv plus with the 212 range is like $37k. That’s $10,000 more than a volt and still like 30 or 40 miles less range.
Also, yes, 149 would be enough for most people who never want a vehicleto take out of town, but you’re leaving out a huge amount of problems with a range like that. First, if you’re going to charge it every day it means you better own a house and garage to keep it in and charge, because charging stations for 45 minutes every other day or so would be terrible to deal with. Then if you live in a place where it gets really cold that mileage will be hacked down to about 110 miles. Plus, your battery will not last nearly as long if you have to use most of its range all the time and always have to charge it up to 100% full. Charging an EV up to just 80% or so capacity and recharging it at about 20% will literally double the lifespan of the battery. A small capacity EV like that won’t last nearly as long as one with a bigger battery.
It is a big, untapped market but it’s not a big market for the Leaf. Tesla sold 3x more Model 3 in the last year alone than Nissan has sold in the entire 14 year production run of the Leaf. It’s a hot mess.
The Model 3 is over $40,000. It’s selling more because Americans are barely even aware cheaper EVs exist.
I absolutely agree with you there. For consumer space this merger doesn’t make sense for Honda. For Nissan share holder, this is fantastic… Only thing I can think of is Nissan has some EV tech that Honda could use but that’s quite the stretch. Nissan actually jumped into EV relatively early but they didn’t iterate on it quickly enough to matter. Honda has been dragging their feet on EV and they both completely missed the boat on bridge tech offering like plug in hybrid. This merger isn’t going to do anything to fix that.
Since Nissan is now a low end brand and Honda is moving more towards premium side perhaps being together would cover the market segments better. The merger absolutely does nothing for the high end market though.
The one thing that I don’t know anything about is the commercial market domestically in Japan. Perhaps Nissan has good market share which Honda could gain from this merger. Maybe someone could chime in on this.
Public perception is also a factor. Even seeing collaborated cars like their EV Chevy thing takes away from Honda’s perception of reliability.