Nissan and Honda let a $60bn merger die over who would control it

Nissan and Honda signed a memorandum of understanding on 23 December 2024 to consider a business integration, with Mitsubishi involved as a junior partner. The proposed combination would have created an auto group worth about $60 billion and ranked fourth worldwide by vehicle sales.

The companies did not agree on what integration meant in practice. Nissan wanted an equal partnership, while Honda proposed changing the plan to make Honda the parent and Nissan its subsidiary through a share exchange. Honda also entered the talks from the stronger position and tied a merger to Nissan's turnaround.

On 13 February 2025, the companies terminated the memorandum. Honda's official announcement said the increasingly volatile shift toward electrification made speed of decision-making important, but the central governance question had already made the proposed structure unacceptable to Nissan. The two companies kept an electric-vehicle partnership, but the larger integration was gone.