Nissan CEO: News ‘coming soon’ on potential Honda partnership
Nissan CEO Iván Espinosa said that despite failed merger talks last year, Nissan and Honda are still discussing ways to collaborate on auto-related projects.
Pras Subramanian· Senior Reporter
Updated Thu, July 9, 2026 at 1:52 AM GMT+5:30
2 min read
A year and a half after Nissan (NSANY) and Honda’s (HMC) $60 billion merger collapsed, the two companies are talking again — but not like that
Nissan CEO Iván Espinosa said the two automakers are having project-based discussions rather than anything resembling the potential merger that fell apart in February 2025.
“There’s no discussion around integration,” Espinosa said in an interview with Yahoo Finance. “It’s more about focusing on projects that can be beneficial for both companies.”
But he added, “The discussions are very constructive. We’ll soon be coming out with some news, so it’s looking good.”
News will likely come in three areas, Espinosa said. The first is US manufacturing capacity. “We both need some capacity in the US, so we both need certain products,” he said.
The second is hardware for electric vehicle architectures, along with an open question of “whether we should have a common software stack, up to what level.”
The third is battery supply for hybrids in the US, where Espinosa said Nissan sees building demand .
The new talk of collaboration is a much different tone than the one Nissan struck when the original deal died. The merger would have created the world’s third-largest automaker with Mitsubishi folded in as a junior partner, but it unraveled after Honda pushed to make Nissan a subsidiary rather than an equal partner, a structure Nissan wouldn’t accept.
(NSANY)
Go deeper with AlphaSpace
3.8600-0.1200(-3.02%)
At close: 11:10:01 AM EDT
NSANYHMC
The dynamic between the two companies has also shifted since the collapse. Nissan has since returned to an annual operating profit under Espinosa’s Nissan restructuring plan. In fact, Nissan has been on a roll lately, with 16 straight months of sales gains in the US and a rebooted product revamp that will see the return of the Xterra SUV, a more powerful Rogue EREV hybrid, and even a new manual transmission sports car for enthusiasts.
Meanwhile, Honda slipped into the red with its first-ever annual loss, almost a reversal of positions before merger talks fell apart.
Despite this, Espinosa sees a mutually beneficial relationship in working with Nissan on discrete projects on US capacity, EV hardware, and hybrid batteries, rather than as a shared holding company
Whether “coming out with some news” soon means a formal agreement or just another joint statement is an open question. The wait for news shouldn’t be too long, however, as the two Japanese auto giants report fiscal quarterly earnings later this summer
Pras Subramanian is the lead auto reporter for Yahoo Finance. You can follow him onXand onInstagram
Click here for the latest stock market news and in-depth analysis, including events that move stocks
Read the latest financial and business news from Yahoo Finance
