Mitsubishi wants to join Nissan & Honda alliance
According to the Japanese business paper Nikkei, Mitsubishi is to become part of the alliance between Nissan and Honda, which was announced in March. The cooperation is intended to aim at the joint development of software in order to reduce costs and make the three manufacturers more competitive, particularly in the field of electromobility.
Currently, Nissan holds a 34.01% stake in Mitsubishi. With the NDA now signed, Mitsubishi Motors is at the table negotiating with Honda and Nissan. Honda and Nissan are the second and third largest automakers in Japan, respectively, and their 2024 fiscal global sales figures stand at 4.1 million and 3.44 million units, which ended in March 2024. Should Mitsubishi Motors add its 810,000 units, the group will have a collective sales figure of 8.35 million vehicles.
The first objective of the partnership will focus on standardising the in-vehicle software that controls the vehicle. Nissan and Honda plan to develop the basic software jointly and will now consider its use in Mitsubishi Motors vehicles.
Cooperation efforts in the vehicle sector are also under consideration. For example, Honda does not manufacture plug-in vehicles or pick-ups in Japan, which are both areas in which Mitsubishi is well-represented on the market.
The Nikkei report also sees a reason for the cooperation plans: “In 2023, Nissan and Honda sold only 140,000 and 19,000 EVs worldwide, respectively, while Tesla and BYD were far ahead with 1.8 million and 1.57 million units, respectively.” Business in China also struggled, as local manufacturers can better compete in the price range.
A similar major international partnership between the partners had also formed in the past together with Renault, however, the potential partnership ended up being smaller than initially anticipated.
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