It shouldn’t really surprise anybody that Mitsubishi finally got taken over by a larger auto maker, the brand was simply too small and too irrelevant in the world’s most important markets to survive on its own. But the way Nissan played its cards was a stroke of genius, whether intentional from the get-go or just improvising on the opportunity at hand. Mitsubishi has supplied its bigger rival with Japanese market minicars (“Kei” cars, as described in my article on the Japanese auto culture) since 2011 and when Nissan was testing the pre-production next generation cars they found some irregularities with the reported fuel economy figures. This led to a public scandal in which Mitsubishi had to admit some of its engineers had been using a trick with tire pressures for the past 25 years to overstate fuel economy of its Japanese market cars (and perhaps some cars sold outside of Japan), causing Mitsubishi’s share prices on the stock market to almost halve. Nissan then scooped up 34% of these shares at the heavily discounted price for a controlling stake to become Mitsubishi’s largest single shareholder. It’ll take a few months to complete the takeover, and there are still quite a few issues to be handled before the deal will be finalized, but looking ahead: what will Nissan do with Mitsubishi? [Read more…]
LCV alliances shake-up: who’s breaking up and who’s tying up?
The Light Commercial Vehicle business in Europe has always been one of low margins and high volume. That’s why so many LCV models are co-developed in alliances of automakers who would otherwise be each others rivals. Some of these alliances have been in place and successful for decades, take for example the “Sevel Sud” alliance between Fiat and PSA Peugeot-Citroën, which has been producing the Fiat Ducato, Peugeot Boxer (originally known as J5) and Citroën Jumper/Relay (originally the C25) since 1981. However, in the upcoming few years, some of these alliances are due for a shake-up as a result of two new partnerships in the European car landscape. The first one is a cooperation between PSA and General Motors, even though this partnership already been reduced from its initial target, it will still involve Light Commercial Vehicles, and the other is the tightening of the relationship between Renault-Nissan and Daimler. Each of these four automakers already have tie-ups with other brands in the LCV market, most notably the cooperation between General Motors and Renault-Nissan. [Read more…]