Faced with increasingly severe competition in many markets, Japanese automakers have begun to band together to keep warm.
Nikkei reported that Mitsubishi Motors plans to join the Honda-Nissan Alliance.
Mitsubishi Motors headquarters, Tokyo, Japan.
This alliance does not refer to the "Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi Alliance" concept in terms of organizational structure, but rather strategic cooperation at the in-vehicle software level as individual automobile manufacturers.
It is understood that Nissan and Honda will jointly develop basic software and will discuss its application in Mitsubishi Motors. The three companies will also consider complementing each other's model lineups.
In recent years, as Tesla and Chinese automakers have accelerated their investment in electric vehicles, Japanese automakers have been unable to compete with them in terms of scale and supply chain. This tripartite cooperation marks that the Japanese auto industry is accelerating its efforts to work together to tackle electric vehicle technology and use economies of scale to reduce costs in order to more effectively cope with competitive pressure in the global market.
Honda Motor and Nissan Motor announced a comprehensive cooperation agreement in March to carry out comprehensive cooperation on the electric vehicle business, including joint procurement, joint development of power platforms, and standardization of spare parts. Nissan and Honda hope to reduce costs through resource integration and enhance the product competitiveness of Chinese electric vehicles.
Honda and Nissan are Japan's second- and third-largest automakers, with global sales of 4.1 million and 3.44 million vehicles, respectively, in the fiscal year ending March 2024. If Mitsubishi's 810,000 vehicles are added, the alliance's total sales will reach 8.35 million vehicles.
Japan also has another alliance led by Toyota, namely Toyota, Daihatsu, Suzuki, Subaru, Mazda and Hino. The total sales of these five automakers reached 16 million vehicles.
In the era of smart electric vehicles, the importance of in-vehicle software is self-evident. It enables more efficient communication and real-time updates between vehicles and the outside world, and can continue to improve product strength even after the vehicle is sold. Japanese automakers are aware of this, but believe that developing such software costs too much money, so they choose to form an alliance.
Not long ago, the United States announced that it would "intercept" Chinese in-vehicle software starting from August 1, and use trade policies and various bills to prevent related components produced in China from entering the United States.
Behind the alliance between Honda, Nissan and Mitsubishi is a sense of crisis brought about by major changes in the automotive industry. Electrification has led to the rise of the Chinese automotive industry, and Japanese automakers have been forced to change.
In the Chinese market, new energy vehicles are constantly squeezing the market share of fuel vehicles. In the past three years, the market share of Japanese cars was 22.6%, 20.0% and 17.0% respectively, and the market share continued to shrink. In 2023, Toyota, Honda and Nissan's sales in China fell by 1.7%, 10.1% and 16.1% respectively. In the first half of 2024, the market share of Japanese brands in China fell to 14.9%.
In the global market, in 2023, Nissan and Honda only sold 140,000 and 19,000 electric vehicles respectively worldwide, while Tesla and BYD were far ahead with 1.8 million and 1.57 million respectively.
Toyota, Honda and other mainstream Japanese automakers released their electrification strategies two years ago, planning to launch more than 30 new energy vehicles by 2030. But the results were nothing, and the share of Japanese cars in the new energy market is now almost negligible.
