Carlos Ghosn always has something to say when it comes to Nissan. The onetime Nissan leader may have been admired for his business acumen in the 90s and 2000s, but nowadays, he’s acting like a bitter uncle you can’t move on from a bad divorce. Sometimes though, he can’t help but give faint praise to his former employer.
During an online press conference hosted by the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Japan, Ghosn who called in from Lebanon reveals his favorite SUV: a Nissan Patrol. He says, “I can tell you, the Patrol of Nissan is a great car. I’m still using it.”
Now, before you think that this is a ringing endorsement of Nissan, Ghosn couldn’t help but insert a jab: “By the way, you can have a great product without having a great company.”
Oooof.
Ghosn continues to admire Nissan’s SUVs and trucks, but when it comes to cars, this is what he’s got to say, “If you want just a city car, probably the safest bet in Japan would be Toyota.”
The former head of Nissan, who’s now a fugitive from Japanese prosecutors, didn’t hold back when it came to his thoughts on the Honda-Nissan merger, Ghosn says it holds little potential because the two companies overlap so much.
“They are strong in the same fields. They are weak in the same fields. There is duplication everywhere. So industrially, for me, it does not make sense.”
Ghosn said that Honda, for starters, has no track record of working well with capital partners. Meanwhile, Nissan management, doesn’t have the talent to fix things themselves.
“They are surrendering in a certain way, in panic mode, by saying, ‘Please help us,’” Ghosn said about Nissan. “And they turn into an archrival of Nissan which is Honda, and Honda has no experience in alliances, no experiences in mergers,” he continued. “I wonder how this is going to work.”
Concluded Ghosn: “The seeds of conflicts or problems are already there.”
Considering how the Honda-GM partnership with electric vehicles went, I'm not sure how well this Honda-Nissan merge would go.
ReplyDelete