Nissan and Honda confirm new EV partnership as they look to play catch up with Tesla, BYD
It’s official. Nissan and Honda are forming a new EV partnership after falling behind leaders like Tesla and China’s BYD. Will working together help turn things around?
Nissan and Honda form EV partnership to keep pace
Yesterday, Electrek reported that Nissan and Honda were considering partnering up to introduce more affordable EVs.
Sources at Nissan told Nikkei the automaker was looking to team up with Honda to discuss joint battery and EV development. Nissan and Honda made the partnership official Friday, signing a memorandum of understanding (MOU) to advance EV and software development.
The Japanese automakers will explore new software platforms, EV components, and other related tech.
Nissan’s CEO, Makoto Uchida, said it’s “important to prepare for the increasing pace of transformation in mobility in the mid-to-long term.” Uchida explained that the partnership with Honda is “significant” given that the two “face common challenges.”
Toshihiro Mibe, Honda’s CEO, said the company will see if combining tech and knowledge “will enable us to become industry leaders by creating new value.”
With Nissan looking to move to a common EV powertrain, the automakers could partner up on purchasing. They may also collaborate on a new shared EV platform.
The new partnership comes as both automakers (and the Japanese auto industry) quickly fell behind EV leaders like Tesla and BYD. According to sources, the aim is to bring down EV prices to compete with low-cost leaders from China.
After dominating its home market, BYD is expanding overseas. Earlier this year, BYD declared a “liberation battle” against gas-powered cars, slashing EV prices under $10,000 (69,800 yuan).
According to the automaker, the low prices are “directly destroying the moat of joint venture vehicles.”
That includes Nissan and Honda. A separate Nikkei report claimed they were drastically cutting production in China after struggling to keep up. The move comes as Japanese automakers are losing market share in the region, which accounts for 10% to 20% of their net profit.
Electrke’s Take
After losing market share in key regions to EV leaders like Tesla and BYD, Japanese automakers are feeling the pressure.
After launching EVs in Japan just last year, BYD already accounted for 20% of the nation’s electric car imports in January. With EV sales surging, China topped Japan to become the leading auto export nation for the first time last year.
It will be interesting to see what Nissan and Honda can come up with. After trailblazing the EV market with the release of the LEAF in 2010, Nissan has fallen behind. It took over a decade for its second mass-market EV, the Ariya, to begin rolling out.
After a rough start, Ariya production is finally on track. Nissan is now preparing to launch its next-gen EVs, including a LEAF successor and electric Juke and Qashqai (Rogue Sport in the US) replacements.
Meanwhile, Honda’s first electric SUV, the Prologue, is arriving at US dealerships this month. Based on GM’s Ultium platform, the Prologue offers up to 296 miles range.
Nissan is also reportedly in talks with Fisker about investing in the struggling EV startup. The partnership could include an electric pickup.
After partnering with Honda, will Nissan also invest in Fisker? Fisker has already expressed “substantial doubt” that it can continue operations. To make matters worse, the WSJ reported Fisker had hired a consulting firm for a potential bankruptcy filing.
Fisker responded by saying it does not comment on market rumors, but the company “often works with outside advisors to help manage its business.” The EV startup reiterated it was looking to form “a strategic partnership with a large automaker.”
Could it still be Nissan? Let us know what you think in the comments below. We will likely find out soon, so check back for more info.
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EV sales kept up their momentum in December 2024, with incentives playing a big role, according to the latest Cox Automotive’s Kelley Blue Book report.
December’s strong EV sales saw an average transaction price (ATP) of $55,544, which helped push the industry-wide ATP higher, according to Kelley Blue Book. The December ATP for an EV was higher year-over-year by 0.8%, slightly below the industry average, and higher month-over-month by 1.1%. Tesla ATPs were higher year-over-year by 10.5%.
Incentives for EVs remained elevated in December, although they were slightly lower month-over-month at 14.3% of ATP, down from 14.7% in November.
EV incentives were higher by an impressive 41% year-over-year and have been above 12% of ATP for six consecutive months. Strong sales incentives, which averaged more than $6,700 per sale in 2024, were one reason EV sales surpassed 1.3 million units last year, according to Cox Automotive, a new record for volume and share.
(My colleague Jameson Dow reported yesterday, “In 2024, the world sold 3.5 million more EVs than it did in the previous year … This increase is larger than the 3.2 million increase in EV sales from the previous year – meaning that EV sales aren’t just up, but that the rate of growth is itself increasing.”)
Kelley Blue Book estimated that in December, approximately 84,000 vehicles – or 5.6% of total sales – transacted at prices higher than $80,000 – the highest volume ever. KBB lumps gas cars and EVs together into this luxury vehicle category, so this is where Tesla Cybertruck is slotted.
However, Tesla bundles sales figures of Cybertruck with Model S, Model X, and Tesla Semi(!) into a category it calls “other models,” so we don’t know for sure exactly how many Cybertrucks Tesla sold in Q4, much less in December. However, Electrek‘s Fred Lambert estimates between 9,000 and 12,000 Cybertrucks were sold in Q4, and that’s not a stellar sales figure.
What will January bring when it comes to EV ATPs? What about tax credits? Check back in a month and I’ll fill you in.
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Tesla is now claiming that Cybertruck was the ‘best-selling electric pickup in US’ last year despite not even reporting the number of deliveries.
There’s a lot of context needed here.
As we often highlighted, Tesla is sadly one of, if not the most, opaque automakers regarding sales reports.
Tesla doesn’t break down sales per model or even region.
For comparison, here’s Ford’s Q4 2024 sales report compared to Tesla’s:
You could argue that Tesla has fewer models than Ford, and that’s true, but Tesla’s report literally has two lines despite having six different models.
There’s no reason not to offer a complete breakdown like all other automakers other than trying to make it hard to verify the health of each vehicle program.
This has been the case with the Cybertruck. Tesla is bundling its Cybertruck deliveries with Model S, Model X, and Tesla Semi deliveries.
Despite this lack of disclosure, Tesla has been able to claim that the Cybertruck has become “the best-selling electric pickup truck” in the US in 2024:
It very well might be true. Ford disclosed 33,510 F-150 Lightning truck deliveries in the US in 2024 while most estimates are putting Cybertruck deliveries at around 40,000 units.
Those are global deliveries, but Tesla only delivered the Cybertruck in the US, Canada, and Mexico in 2024, and most of the deliveries are believed to be in the US.
However, there’s essential context needed here, as we highlighted in our recent ‘Tesla Cybertruck sales are disastrous‘ article.
First off, Tesla had a backlog of over 1 million reservations for the Cybertruck that it has been building since 2019. This led many to believe Tesla already had years of demand baked in for the truck and that production would be the constraint.
However, based on estimates, again, because Tesla refuses to disclose the data, Cybertruck deliveries were either flat or down in Q4 versus Q3 despite Tesla introducing cheaper versions of the vehicle and ramping up production.
Again, that’s after just about 40,000 deliveries.
Furthermore, with almost 11,000 deliveries in Q4 in the US, Ford more likely than not outsold Cybertruck with the F-150 Lightning in Q4.
Electrek’s Take
Tesla is in damage control here. There’s no doubt that it is having issues selling the Cybertruck.
Inventory is full of Cybertrucks and Tesla is now discounting them and offering free lifetime Supercharging.
Tesla is great at ramping up production, and it’s clear the Cybertruck is not production-constrained anymore. It is demand-constrained despite having over 1 million reservations.
Again, those reservations were made before Tesla unveiled the production version, which happened to have less range and cost significantly more.
The upcoming cheaper single motor version should help with demand, but I have serious doubts Tesla can ramp this program up to more than 100,000 units in the US.
As a reminder, Tesla installed a production capacity of 250,000 units annually and Musk said he could see Tesla selling 500,000 Cybertrucks per year.
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