The tie-up will form the second-largest car-making alliance in Japan as they look to turn-around slow-selling electric car fortunes.
Mitsubishi will join the Nissan-Honda electric car partnership as the Japanese car makers look to take on emerging Chinese rivals, reports Nikkei Asia.
Honda and Nissan announced the collaboration in March 2024, but now Mitsubishi – which is one third of the Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi alliance – will work with Nissan and Honda on the project.
The tie-up makes sense given Nissan holds a 34.01 per cent stake in Mitsubishi, the three Japanese brands selling a combined 8.35 million vehicles annually.
Combined, the trio ranks second of all Japanese car makers, behind Toyota and its alliance partners whose combined yearly volume is around 16 million.
Nikkei Asia says Mitsubishi’s role – and how it will benefit – is yet to be detailed, but the three brands could look to complement each other’s line-ups, focusing on plugging product and development gaps across the trio.
While not formally confirmed, that may include Mitsubishi sharing its plug-in hybrid technology with Honda as well as smaller pick-up models – neither of which Honda currently has in its portfolio.
The initial plan between Honda and Nissan also proposed standardising in-vehicle software between the car makers, which Nikkei says may now be used by Mitsubishi under licence as part of the deal.
In late 2023, Mitsubishi pulled out of manufacturing in China – the world’s largest new car market – ending its joint-venture with Guangzhou Automobile Group Company (GAC) after posting significant losses and declining sales.
Nissan has also been struggling with electric vehicle sales – despite leading with the original Nissan Leaf electric hatch in 2010 – selling only 140,000 electric cars around the world in 2023.
That compares to 1.81 million electric cars sold by Tesla – the most of any car maker – with Chinese brand BYD close behind with 1.57 million sales.
Honda sold only 19,000 electric cars globally in 2023 – less than half Tesla’s 46,116 reported deliveries in Australia alone.
The Japanese car maker had been working on a smaller, affordable electric car – priced around $US30,000 ($AU46,000) – in a collaboration with US car maker General Motors (GM) announced in 2020.
Honda abandoned the multi-billion-dollar project in late 2023 following an investigation into a fatality which saw GM’s ‘Cruise’ electric robo-taxi division California operating licence suspended.
Following the news, General Motors announced it would introduce a heavily upgraded version of the previous Chevrolet Bolt electric city car – instead of an all-new model – meaning significantly lower development costs.
Similarly, Tesla confirmed its circa US$35,000 ($AU55,000) affordable electric car – which it says will be on sale in North America in 2025 – will use updated hardware, ditching plans for a more expensive new generation platform.
Honda has since announced a partnership with Sony to develop the Afeela electric car brand, with the first of three new models – a compact car, sedan and SUV – planned for showrooms in 2027.
In May 2024, Honda announced it is working on seven ‘0 Series’ electric cars for introduction by 2030, funded by hybrid models including the return of the Prelude sports car.
It plans for 40 per cent of its global sales to be hybrid of fuel cell by 2030, before going 100 per cent electric by 2040.
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