Nissan and Honda reach an agreement for the development of the electric car
Japanese auto giants Nissan and Honda announced Friday that they have agreed to explore a strategic partnership in electric vehicles and other areas. Analysts confirmed that the move is aimed at catching up with Chinese rivals, which have made a breakthrough in electric vehicles, while Japanese companies have lost ground by focusing more on hybrid vehicles.
“To further accelerate efforts towards carbon neutrality and zero road accidents, it will be essential to strengthen environmental and electrification technologies, as well as software development,” it said in a joint statement.
“The two companies reached the agreement based on the belief that it is necessary to combine their strengths and explore the possibility of future collaboration,” he added.
The scope of the feasibility study includes automotive software platforms, EV-related core components and complementary products, they said.
“We are not only competing with traditional car manufacturers, but also with new players. These emerging brands, with innovative products and new business models, are making inroads into the automotive market and are trying to gain dominance by capitalizing on their extraordinary price competitiveness and astonishing speed,” the chief executive of Nissan, Makoto Uchida.
“We cannot win the competition as long as we stick to conventional wisdom and the traditional approach,” he said.
Honda President Toshihiro Mibe said a “transformation of the century is taking place in the automotive industry.”
“Our study criterion will be whether the synergy of technologies and knowledge that our companies have cultivated will allow us to become industry leaders by creating new value for the automotive industry,” he said.
Hybrids combine battery power and internal combustion engines and have proven very popular in Japan, accounting for 40% of sales in 2022.
Japanese brands have strongly committed themselves to the production of hybrid cars, but have lagged behind in electric ones, whose sales in Japan are still low, 1.2% in 2022 versus 15% in Europe.
Electric vehicles will account for up to 20% of new cars sold in China in 2022, and the strength of Chinese auto companies helped the country overtake Japan as the world's largest auto exporter last year.
According to media reports, Honda and Nissan are even considering cutting production capacity in China due to declining sales.
“Both companies don't have a high enough scale to create sufficient profit margins … so they are actually under pressure to find a partnership,” said Chris Redl, an auto industry analyst in Japan.
“Although historically they have been very fierce rivals, it makes more sense for Nissan to join a Japanese company like Honda, rather than developing collaborations with partner Renault, which does not share the culture,” he added.
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The article Nissan and Honda reach an agreement for the development of the electric car comes from Economic Scenarios .
This is a machine translation of a post published on Scenari Economici at the URL https://scenarieconomici.it/nissan-e-honda-raggiungono-un-accordo-per-lo-sviluppo-dellauto-elettrica/ on Fri, 15 Mar 2024 12:58:35 +0000.