Summary
Honda, Nissan, and Mitsubishi have confirmed merger talks to form the world’s third-largest carmaker by annual sales, aiming to tackle challenges from Chinese competition and the shift to electric vehicles.
The proposed merger, through a joint holding company, seeks to combine resources as Japan’s automakers struggle with declining sales and costly EV transitions, lagging behind leaders like Toyota and Chinese rivals BYD.
Nissan's former CEO Carlos Ghosn criticized the plan, citing overlapping operations, while executives called it a pivotal move amid unprecedented industry changes. Mitsubishi will decide on joining by January's end.
Nissan and Mitsubishi make good cars as well.
Hopefully, there will be a triunvirate for a transitional period and then, as it seems this will be a move like FIAT/Chrysler did when they bought Peugeot-Citroën, creating a new holding parent company, now Stelantis, that will take the best from all.
As a mechanic, I feel I have to chime in and say that Mitsubishi makes terrible cars, and Nissan isn't far from it. Honda is a significantly better product in my experience, though turbo failures on their L15 engines are quite common.
Yeah I always heard Nissan was the Dodge of Japan
Nissan looks nice from the outside, but the whole interior feels way cheaper than it should for the price point. When you examine the fit and finish of non-interior assembly, it also starts standing out as pretty junky. Nissan's popularity seems to be due entirely to the Z, and an SUV that they don't even make anymore.
The frontier and the S10, now Colorado, were the cheapest small trucks in the market for a very long time. I’m sure that contributed. Colorado, for example, could be had at base for $19k in 2020 while the basic Tacoma started at $29k.
The Colorado is a completely different truck than the S10. The Colorado is a mid-sized truck, with a powerful engine, and great towing capacity. The S10 was a small truck, with a middling engine, and idk if it could tow at all. The Colorado is a great truck though, especially the 4x4. Unfortunately the higher end models get up into the $70k range.
I’m not a car person, clearly. What I do know is when I price checked small trucks in 2020, the basic, no frills Nissan Frontier and Chevy Colorado cost exactly the same.
Tacoma was $10k more, again, for the basic.
By basic I mean: 2w drive, manual, roll windows, etc.
Yeah, that's the Colorado WT, WT stands for work truck. It's a great vehicle if you just need a work truck. It's still pretty good as an every day vehicle too, if you don't care about the extras.
These three manufacturers don't have a very significative market presence in my country but their models usually sell for higher prices and last longer.
Mitsubishi has an assembly line here, where they put together the Canter model, which is a very sought after car for work, in flat bed configuration, for carrying heavy loads, or to convert into wreckers.
Honda enjoyed a very good period but it became associated with older people (Civic, Accord and other big models) and thugs and street racing, with the Type-R line. They are more sought after for their small farming machines engines than anything else but have been facing serious competition from Kawasaki and other brands.
Nissan has a partnership with Renault here and their 1.5dci engines have become legendary for being robust and long lasting.
All brands lose value slower than most counterparts here. I can go on the market anf find 30 years old Nissans or Hondas with asking prices on the 2000/3000€ range, easily.
I watched a crash test coverage of various vehicles and Mitsubishi was scary bad.
Lol, no they don't!
Stellantis dominates the european market of small cargo vans, equipped with the legendary PSA 1500cc diesel engines, know for being reliable anf long lasting.
These same engines are being applied to other cars, under four separate badges (actually, five) and those four brands make up for a big part of the market.
I am aware Stellantis treats their employees very badly but their cars have been gainning in the quality sector, with good design and very nive interiors.