Honda-Nissan’s EV Partnership to Include Mitsubishi

On Thursday, Nissan and Honda said they had agreed to jointly develop EV software and mutually supply each other with batteries in a move to compete against Tesla and Chinese rivals.

The CEOs of both companies did not rule out a capital tie-up in the future, but they said that the collaboration, which we first reported about in March, will not be limited to EVs. 

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“In the fields of electrification and intelligence, the speed of change is well beyond what we had expected,” Honda’s top boss Toshihiro Mibe said at a joint news conference in Tokyo. “If we don’t move now, we won’t be able to catch up [with the new players].”

Honda and Nissan said their partnership would also include Mitsubishi, while Toyota is already part of an alliance that includes Mazda, Subaru and Suzuki. Honda also has a separate joint-venture with Sony that plans to start delivering its software-focused electric vehicle Afeela to North America by 2026.

Nissan’s existing alliance with Renault in Europe will continue, to be clear. Its partnership with Honda will be in other regions.

“I get asked all the time if this means the end of our relations with Renault, but that’s definitely not the case,” Nissan’s Makoto Uchida said. “But Nissan still has many challenges to compete globally so we are partnering with Honda to expand our growth.”