There are two ways to look at the news out of Japan this morning. Either you focus on a Nissan exec saying “We have 12 or 14 months to survive” or you focus on the fact that, if Nissan can’t get it together, it’ll probably have to sell a huge chunk of the company to Honda. I think a potential merger makes a lot of sense and could produce a lot of fun cars.
I’m not going to be a vibe killer in today’s Morning Dump. No, friends, I’m going to be a Mr. Brightside. How are sales going? Sales are looking up in November as buyers get a bit of rate relief and incentives continue to grow. Is news that Cadillac is discontinuing the XT4 a bad thing for people who want an affordable car, or a good thing for buyers looking for a cheaper luxury electric car?
Volkswagen is going to leave its Xinjiang plant in China, which sounds like more problems for the automaker in Asia, but the reality is that the plant is alleged to be involved in abuses against the local Uyghur population.
Everything is coming up Milhouse, today!
I Am Shipping Nissan And Honda, As The Kids Say
I probably get about as many things wrong as I get right. This will not be immediately apparent as the perch of a daily news roundup allows me to beak about the automotive happenings of the day, and if I’m correct I get to crow about my abilities as a prognosticator. If I’m wrong, well, there are probably hundreds of posts between my incorrect guess and reality, which keeps the mocking to a minimum (when I’m wrong, please tweet about it and @ me).
It was back in August of this year that I came to the reasonable conclusion that Honda and Nissan should just be one company, writing:
Toyota has a market cap of almost $300 billion. Honda and Nissan, combined, have a market cap of less than $70 billion. Nissan couldn’t make the Renault relationship work because the underlying concept of a Japanese company being owned by the French state was a bridge too far.
A consolidated Nissan and Honda bring engineering and manufacturing scale without the huge culture clash. I also don’t think their products are so similar that they can’t work in concert. Nissan/Mitsubishi have a truck competency that Honda lacks whereas Honda is way better at building hybrids.
Oh, yeah, Nissan and Mitsubishi are already tied-up, so that is just a part of the deal.
This makes almost too much sense to me and, according to a new report in the Financial Times, it’s closer to happening than ever:
“We have 12 or 14 months to survive,” said a senior official close to Nissan.
Nissan has not ruled out having Honda buy some of its shares, with “all options” being considered, as it launches a series of restructuring measures on the back of declining sales in both China and the US, the people said.
In addition, people close to Renault said it would be open to selling a portion of its shares in Nissan to Honda as part of a restructuring of its 25-year-old Nissan alliance. One person close to Renault said a stronger relationship between Nissan and Honda could “only be positive” for the French group.
The article gives the sense that maybe Honda ownership is a “last resort,” but with activist investors buying shares in Nissan we’re definitely closer to the last resort than the first resort.
This could be awesome. Historically, Nissan and Honda have made some bonkers cars. We were just listing them in Slack and it’s something you could do all day. Figaro, S30, Z32, NSX, Integra, V6 manual Accord Coupe, 1st gen Euro HR-V. Just great cars all the way down.
It’s possible Nissan gets itself sorted and is able to limit this to a partnership, but just look at what Toyota is doing in its partnership with Mazda. The smaller company lacked a good hybrid option and now you get the CX-50 with the RAV4’s powertrain. Imagine Nissan being able to leverage Honda’s hybrid powertrains, Honda being able to leverage Mitsubishi’s plug-in systems, and all of them sharing one global mid-size truck platform.
Good times are here again if Nissan and Honda (and Mitsubishi) team up, I think.
November Is Going To Be A Good Month For Car Sales
The car market this entire year, in general, has just been slightly ahead of last year, with the exception of November, which is ahead of last year by a greater margin according to S&P Global Mobility. Analysts project a SAAR (seasonally adjusted annualized selling rate) of about 15.9 million, compared to 15.5 million last November. That’s good news.
What’s going on? Here are the highlights from Cox Automotive:
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Consumer sentiment has reached a 3.5-year high, driven by post-election optimism.
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Retail vehicle sales have shown significant strength, with both new and used sales up 11% compared to 2023.
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Auto loan rates are declining, with the average used rate at 13.76% and new rate at 9.12%.
You may or may not be happy with the results of the election, but I think most people are relieved it’s over. That, coupled with strong incentives and an improvement in auto loan rates, should bring more people back into dealers this Christmas.
We’re going to end up short of where I projected we’d be (see, I get things wrong), though I think a strong December will help bring it closer in line with initial expectations.
The Death Of The Cadillac XT4 Isn’t That Bad, Right?
Every time I see a Cadillac XT4 I have to remind myself that the XT4 is a vehicle that exists. It’s a totally fine crossover and one that brings people into dealerships as an entry-level luxury car. Cadillac needs more than just another “fine” car. It either needs something great and truly affordable, like the Buick Envista, or it needs something extremely competitive.
For Cadillac that means dumping the XT4 and picking up the new Cadillac Optiq which, though an EV, seems like a big improvement. As Thomas pointed out:
See, not only is this a proper all-wheel-drive luxury crossover that’s bordering on midsize, Cadillac is planning on selling the base trim for $54,000 including freight. That’s roughly rear-wheel-drive Genesis GV60 money, base-trim Volvo XC40 Recharge money, or Audi Q4 e-tron money for a larger EV.
The price tag should bring it, post tax-credit, within range of the XT4 for something much much better. Or, as one dealer put it in Automotive News today:
The impact on retailers ultimately may be regional and depend on local EV adoption rates, said Howard Drake, who owns Casa de Cadillac in Los Angeles.
Cadillac’s plan to phase out gasoline vehicles has been well-publicized, he said, though he didn’t think the XT4 would go first. Drake’s dealership has had success selling the Lyriq, though, so he’s optimistic the Optiq can take the XT4′s place in his market.
“This is just Casa’s opinion,” Drake said. “There’s more people looking to go into EV in that segment than there are ICE buyers looking for the next vehicle.”
I’m now tempted to start every sentence today with “This is just Casa’s opinion.”
VW Out Of Xinjiang
This is just Casa’s opinion, but it’s a good thing that Volkswagen is getting out of its Xinjiang plant.
VW and SAIC will sell their plant in Xinjiang to Shanghai Motor Vehicle Inspection Certification (SMVIC), a unit of state-owned Shanghai Lingang Development Group, which will take on all its employees, they said.
Under the terms of the deal, for which financial details were not disclosed, SMVIC will also take over SAIC/VW’s test tracks in Turpan, Xinjiang, and Anting in Shanghai. Volkswagen will then no longer have a presence in Xinjiang. Beijing has denied any abuses there.
The global reaction to the Chinese government’s treatment of the local Uyghur population has already caught Volkswagen off-guard and it’s good to just resolve it. It’s also a positive sign for Volkswagen that it’ll have a partner in SAIC for another ten years.
What I’m Listening To While Writing TMD
That’s right, it’s Electric Light Orchestra with “Mr. Blue Sky” because that’s my attitude today.
The Big Question
What’s your favorite Nissan and what’s your favorite Honda?
Mitsubishi and their PHEV tech would go well with Honda and their string dealer network if it formed to that level. Nissan had made great strides with fully electric vehicles like the original Leaf but were too early to the party. An overall larger company with more money to go around helps small three. Remember that Honda is well known but it a small company compared to Toyota, General Motors and Fomoco. And getting Nissan away from anything European is for the better.
Favorite Honda: S2000
Favorite Nissan: 1996 300ZX
Favorite Mitsu: my 2024 Outlander
Favorite Nissan: Figaro
Favorite Honda: CRX Si
My favourite Nissan? Any gen. of the Micra. The only Honda I can think of in this context is, what was basically a 1st gen Fit with a different name, with a 1.2 liter engine, for an acceptable price (that lasted for only maybe a year).
My problem with this supposed technology sharing is that Nissan already has a hybrid drivetrain, and Honda has a CR-V PHEV. They just don’t sell any of these in North America. (And just for the sake of technological diversity, I would like neither of them to disappear.)
Nissan is quite similar to Chrysler, makes some amazing vehicles and also makes bad vehicles/decisions constantly putting them on the edge of bankruptcy.
Favorite Nissan:
Probably a Y60 or Y61 Patrol. The land Cruiser gets all the love, but the Patrol is a serious beast and probably the better offroader (Toyota is the better Overlander).
Favorite Honda:
Maybe an S600 or NSX. Honda makes great vehicles, but they don’t really catch my attention.
My favorite Nissan is the Datsun 240Z. My favorite Honda is the ST1100.
I want to say my favorite Honda is the second generation CRX Si, but my current car, a third generation Fit EX, has to get the nod. Definitely my trusted companion.
Yeah I can’t see what Honda would be gaining here. They could just partner with Mitsubishi themselves and get the plugin tech. There’s no “secret sauce” that Nissan really has to offer, which is part of the reason they’re on the ropes.
Favorite Nissan? 1992 Sentra SE-R.
Favorite Honda? 1991 CRX Si.
IMHO it doesn’t make any sense for Honda, there is little if anything for them to gain that they couldn’t build from scratch better. Suzuki would benefit far more from involvement with Nissan and their established North American network.
There is some product overlap at the bottom end and of course Jimny, the affordable, easily road legal, side by side. The perfect vehicle for when the post election reality clicks in. (-;
They would gain us manufacturing plants and several frames (Frontier and Armada) for trucks/SUVs (Honda currently only has unibody production vehicles). If the tariffs come to pass having scaled US domestic production facilities will be a huge win for them.
Nissan needs a money life-line, something Suzuki isn’t going to provide at the level that Nissan needs. Under Carlos Ghosn, Nissan quickly started to spiral out of control with his poor leadership and to top it off his legal issues dragged Nissan through the muck with him. What Nissan needs now in addition to money is some excellent corporate leadership.
I’m hoping Honda buys Nissan. Then Honda will have access to decent paint.
Every time I see a Nissan on the road, my inner voice screams ‘I know you have bad credit!’. Infiniti is defined as ‘Sorta luxury car the driver tolerates for the fantastic lease deal’. Not surprising they are sinking fast.
I got an Altima for a rental a few weeks ago, and Nissan being on life support doesn’t surprise me at all. What a truly uninspiring vehicle. You know that having to rearrange all the luggage in the trunk because the stupid beam style hinges crush two suitcases within the first minute of the rental is a bad omen. It’s 2024, use linkages, it *cannot* be that much more expensive.
Unfortunately, Nissan is hardly alone in that. Hinges are not only common in the segments that Nissan serves, but they have also crept into what I would consider to be more premium cars. (IIRC, I saw a review of a Lexus that had them.)
I could possibly see Honda and Nissan sharing hybrid/EV knowledge back and forth or something, but Honda would have to be mental to try and buy that company. Saving Nissan will take financial resources far beyond what Honda is willing or able to spare. I foresee a partnership with a Chinese conglomerate in their future.
But favorite Honda/Nissan are the Type SH Prelude and probably the R31 Skyline.
The only thing Nissan brings to the Honda/Nissan matchup are BOF trucks. The Frontier competes to closely with the Ridgeline and the Titan is an also-ran in the full size market. There’s way more up sides for Nissan than there are Honda. And that goes double for a Honda/Mitsubishi pairing.
I think Honda could really benefit from Nissan’s BOF experience. Mostly the Patrol but maybe a little Frontier/Navara and Titan. Much of what Nissan did with the Titan was outsourced out purchased from other suppliers. It was actually a pretty good truck, but felt old school in a bad way, unlike the Frontier that feels old school in a good way.
The Titan has been discontinued hasn’t it?
Point proven!
What’s the benefit to Honda in teaming up with Nissan? It would be like introducing an Altima with body damage into a reasonably sane commute. No good will come of it.
Favourite Nissan: Z31 300ZX. If I am being specific, I have always been fond of the 86 Turbo.
Favourite Honda: hmmm….I want to say the del Sol DOHC VTEC, but I would still really like an Accord Sport 2.0T with the 6-speed.
A BoF platform to build a 4Runner competitor. That seems to be it. I don’t see a RWD coupe on the Z chassis being likely but boy would I love a revived S2000.
But Honda doesn’t need either of those. One could argue that they could just use the older S2000 chassis for a sports car given when the Z chassis originated. And the truck….why? It isn’t who they are.
Because it’s a hot segment that Toyota is dominating and Honda has an also-ran. The Frontier is widely regarded as a good product by reviewers, but sales are slow because Nissan. I think a Honda badged Frontier and revived Xterra can do well. They’re already attempting it with their ruggedized Pilot and the other one.
But I may be biased because I want more BoF off-roaders that I can pick up on the used market.
Honda used to rebadge Isuzu Rodeos and that didn’t really set the world on fire.