Nissan Has a New CEO

The rumors were true–Nissan’s CEO Makoto Uchida is stepping down. Ivan Espinosa, currently the chief planning officer, will take the reigns of the troubled Japanese automaker. The change in leadership was decided today during a board of directors meeting and will come into effect on April 1. Additional management changes are planned to “achieve the company’s short- and mid-term objectives while positioning it for long-term growth.”

With Makoto Uchida out of the picture, Nissan and Honda could resume merger talks. The Financial Times reported last month that Honda would still be willing to discuss a tie-up with Nissan, provided that Uchida steps down. The FT learned from “people with knowledge of the deliberations” that Honda does “not completely rule out the possibility of resuming the discussions.” However, at today’s board of directors meeting, Nissan didn’t discuss the possibility of restarting merger talks with Honda.

While the merger was still being negotiated, Honda had a change of heart. It wanted more than just the establishment of the joint holding company initially outlined in the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) signed in December 2024. Instead, Honda insisted on turning Nissan into a subsidiary.

“Honda proposed changing the structure from establishing a joint holding company, where Honda would appoint the majority of directors and the chief executive officer based on a joint share transfer as initially outlined in the MOU, to a structure where Honda would be the parent company and Nissan the subsidiary through a share exchange.”

Regardless of whether talks with Honda resume, Nissan faces an uphill battle to get back on track. The company has already announced a restructuring plan, which includes 9,000 job cuts and a 20% reduction in global production capacity, from five to four million cars. At least three factories will be closed, starting with a plant in Thailand in FY2025 Q1. The other two will shut down in FY2025 Q3 and FY2026. Additionally, Nissan is reducing shifts at its U.S. plants in Smyrna, Tennessee, and Canton, Mississippi.

Nissan hopes to bounce back by cutting costs in other areas. For example, developing a next-generation car will now take 37 months—15 months less than before. This timeline covers the entire process from the start of development to the beginning of production. For the follow-up model, Nissan aims to further reduce development time to 30 months, shaving off 20 months compared to its previous strategy. Parts complexity is projected to drop by a whopping 70%, while “design simplification” could imply a unified design language across global products to save more money.

A Nissan veteran, Ivan Espinosa, has his work cut out for him as he tackles mounting debt, an aging product portfolio, and high costs. Whether Honda will play a role in Nissan’s future remains unclear, but one thing is certain–the next few years will be challenging.