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How Nissan and Honda's $60B merger talks collapsed

reuters.com

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Re: How Nissan and Honda's $60B merger talks collapsed

#121

Post by margalabargala »

KerrAvon wrote: post #103
margalabargala wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tesla gained a reputation of being the best EVs around, by virtue of being essentially the only company making EVs able to truly replace a gas car for close to a decade. It's easy to be the best in a category with just one competitor. Now that other companies are making EVs that compete directly with Tesla, they aren't reliably best-in-class or best-in-price-point anymore. Compare the Rivian R1T to the Cybertruck, or…

Lucid has a viable Model S competitor. I haven't driven one, but they're very well-reviewed and they beat the Model S specs for range.

Interesting, it looks like they've dropped their prices a lot since the last time I checked. You're right.

Re: How Nissan and Honda's $60B merger talks collapsed

#122

Post by seanmcdirmid »

bobthepanda wrote: post #94
poglet wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Was surprised how popular there are, also self driving taxis in Wuhan and other places.

there's a lot of incentives pushing people into EVs. For example, to limit pollution and congestion it often takes winning a lottery to get a car registration for ICE, but that's generally much laxer if not completely gone for EVs. In Shanghai at one point the cost of a ICE vehicle registration cost more than a low end EV.

Beijing has a lottery for plates instead, except the allocation for EVs is separate from ICEs, so it is much easily to get an EV. Back in 2016, you started seeing Model S’s driving around Beijing, and those were definitely imported with something like a 20-30% tax (at least), but the only alternative was no luxury car (like the famous black Audi that used to be super common), so they just started showing up.

Re: How Nissan and Honda's $60B merger talks collapsed

#123

Post by onlypassingthru »

crowcroft wrote: post #101
onlypassingthru wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Irrelevant to whom? Toyota, Honda and Subaru all have lifelong customers and for good reason. The cars often last for 20+ years with minimal upkeep. The current crop of Chinese electric car makers are all trying to fake it until one of them makes it and the money spigot keeping them afloat will eventually get turned off at some point.[0] Good luck keeping that flashy EV running when the company goes bust. [0] https:/…

New car purchasing behaviour follows the law of double jeopardy. ie. Toyota has high repeat purchase rates because it has high market share, not because of loyal customers.

In my experience it has more to do with quality and affordability. If you like your Toyota Camry, you're probably going to get another Camry. Subarus are slightly different in that they have cornered a niche (snowy mountain driving) that many owners swear by.

Re: How Nissan and Honda's $60B merger talks collapsed

#124

Post by lmm »

sfifs wrote: post #95
orwin wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Under Goshn and his close early advisors, Renault-Nissan started working on EVs, launching the Leaf and Zoé. Early, he also managed to streamline production of the two companies, and started to implement management changes that let some workers have more autonomy. The issue is that power got to his head and truly believe he was the second coming of Jesus or something, and stopped improving his companies to rub should…

> and idiotic sycophants made him believe he was above the law and deserved even more Well in all fairness he is above the law. He walked out of Japan and is free in his country.

His prosecution was blatantly motivated (the CEO who replaced him has far bigger embezzleme^H^Hfinancial irregularities that no-one cares to charge him for). I doubt people would have been so eager to help him escape if he had actually broken the law rather than being charged for running a big company while foreign.

Re: How Nissan and Honda's $60B merger talks collapsed

#125

Post by chasil »

vosper wrote: post #99
sfifs wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> and idiotic sycophants made him believe he was above the law and deserved even more Well in all fairness he is above the law. He walked out of Japan and is free in his country.

> He walked out of Japan Even better: He escaped by hiding in a music equipment box that was carried onto a private jet https://www.bbc.com/news/business-57760993

There are two well-known documentaries about the Goshn captivity and escape from Japan.

The first is from Netflix:

https://www.netflix.com/title/81227167

The second is from Apple:

https://tv.apple.com/us/show/wanted-the-escape-of-carlos-gho...

Carlos Goshn participated in the Apple documentary.

IMDB is also showing this one:

https://m.imdb.com/title/tt15048602/

Re: How Nissan and Honda's $60B merger talks collapsed

#126

Post by lmm »

jgon wrote: post #26
tahoeskibum wrote: post #6

Nissan, Honda & eventually Toyota are going to go the way of Nokia/Motorola after iPhone came out. Cheap and reliable Chinese EVs will take over the market (like Android), while Tesla will probably maintain a halo premium product like iPhone.

So your prediction is that chinese EVs manage to take over and destroy the Japanese car market, but the American auto market somehow gets a pass and Tesla wins? Why would Tesla be any more able to withstand cars that cost like 1/2 for similar quality, and why wouldn't that same calculus apply to their "halo" products? Are the Chinese fundamentally incapable of building a luxury EV? And if Tesla somehow sees that an E…

> Why would Tesla be any more able to withstand cars that cost like 1/2 for similar quality, and why wouldn't that same calculus apply to their "halo" products?

It works for Apple. When you're premium you can charge 2x as much, because your market isn't as price-conscious.

> why wouldn't current halo manufacturers like BMW and Mercedes and Lexus also try for that market, and why are they sure to fail while Tesla succeeds?

They will. They're not. But Tesla has a fighting chance, in a way that companies trying to compete with China in the commodity EV market don't.

Re: How Nissan and Honda's $60B merger talks collapsed

#127

Post by theshackleford »

silisili wrote: post #60
llm_nerd wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have huge doubts that Teslas will retain a "halo premium", except in some very strange circles. Already they're an embarrassing car to own and the financials of that company are rapidly flushing down the toilet, making it a question of how long it will be a going concern (hence all the frantic rushing around for legitimacy in other markets...robots, why not?) They are widely cited as unreliable, poorly built vehicl…

> Already they're an embarrassing car to own I don't know if that's true, but I find it all pretty funny regardless. Five or more years ago, people hated Tesla drivers, either because they represented wealth or that they were seen as progressive 'tree huggers'. Today people seem to hate Tesla drivers because the brand is for right wing nazis. I think both takes are misguided, and I don't know how popular those takes…

> Five or more years ago, people hated Tesla drivers, either because they represented wealth or that they were seen as progressive 'tree huggers'.

I suspect this may vary by location, or be more of an "online" thing maybe. I didn't know anyone who had any particular hate for Telsa drivers.

> Today people seem to hate Tesla drivers because the brand is for right wing nazis.

Again, I don't really know anyone today in my circles who dislike Tesla drivers themselves. Could be a big bias here though because I think I likely congregate by default with the tiny minority of people who can afford to buy a Tesla in the first place (or any such car here.)

I do know Tesla owners who are significantly less enthusiastic about their purchase today than they were when they acquired it and yes, its because of Elon, but they are not about to give up the car over it. They still like the car. Equally I know owners who remain thrilled and could give less of a shit.

Nobody outside of them really thinks about them much at all positively or negatively I would say. Some of them do seem to have a tendency to assume everyone will have as much interest as they do in their car but I am sure many such cars inspire people to this kind of zealotry, like...hardware computing brands or sports teams I suppose.

The cars themselves seem ok enough to me. I can appreciate what an EV brings to making a car "fun", but its very hard for me to find any car particularly exciting or interesting to be honest so they don't really do anything to move me but as long as the people that do own them are happy what do I care? I suspect they feel much the same way about my mode of travel.

Re: How Nissan and Honda's $60B merger talks collapsed

#128

Post by mikeyouse »

lmm wrote: post #124
sfifs wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> and idiotic sycophants made him believe he was above the law and deserved even more Well in all fairness he is above the law. He walked out of Japan and is free in his country.

His prosecution was blatantly motivated (the CEO who replaced him has far bigger embezzleme^H^Hfinancial irregularities that no-one cares to charge him for). I doubt people would have been so eager to help him escape if he had actually broken the law rather than being charged for running a big company while foreign.

He had enriched himself to the tune of tens of millions of company dollars completely undisclosed to the firm.. he had multiple mansions, yachts, and “CEO Reserve” bank accounts that the BoD wasn’t aware of. The men who were “so eager” to help him escape were paid upwards of $1M to do so… man I’m getting tired of people justifying ludicrous amounts of graft and theft.

If other people embezzle as well, send them to prison, but there’s no universe in which Ghosn is clean. And there are plenty of big companies ran by people who aren’t so morally bankrupt.

Re: How Nissan and Honda's $60B merger talks collapsed

#129

Post by r00fus »

olyjohn wrote: post #71
r00fus wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't. You buy from a large vehicle manufacturer like Ford, Kia, etc. where they have commitment to parts delivery for the foreseeable future. Fisker was always a scam if you remember back from days of Fisker Karma.

Do the big companies really have a commitment to parts delivery anymore, or are they following the same trend? Took my friend 9 months to get a part for his C8 Corvette when it got rear ended at 5mph. Tons of other GM owners have been waiting months to nearly a year for many common parts for repairs. Selling parts doesn't make these companies money, so why should they care? As long as they're making enough to sell th…

I will say a couple of things:

* my Ford Focus EV had a very short lead time for parts because it was based on a platform (Focus) shared across many vehicles. Also repair cost was very low for a multi-car accident ($2k).

* Similarly, when common tech is spread across many vehicles (Kia/Hyundai eGMP or GM Ultium) those components are often easier to acquire.

Buying low-volume vehicles or from smaller manufacturers is a recipe for long wait times and expensive repairs. How many Corvettes does GM sell?

Re: How Nissan and Honda's $60B merger talks collapsed

#130

Post by Mistletoe »

dghlsakjg wrote: post #84
AcerbicZero wrote: post #81

I haven't been following this closely, but what was the appeal for Honda? I mean, Nissan has a few cars that are moving in OK numbers these days but I don't see many routes for a return to form over the long run; Commodity cars are a dying breed.

> Commodity cars are a dying breed. Not in Asia, the worlds biggest car market, and where the worlds biggest car making country is. More than anything, low end electric cars are MASSIVELY popular in China.

I still wouldn't want a Nissan commodity car. My family has owned a few and even Infinitis and it didn't turn out well compared to all the Toyotas that are still in the family. The G35 was a great car, but those days are gone.
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