Electronics Weekly
Nissan’s China car factory is currently making half the number of cars which it made at its peak output. General Motors is facing $5 billion in charges and write downs on it’s China operations while Volkswagen, BMW and Mercedes, are struggling.
Mitsubishi announced its withdrawal from vehicle 
production in China last year. Stellantis has closed its China Jeep factory and is said to be pulling out of all production in China. Ford and Hyundai have closed China car factories.
Tesla is making 950,000 EVs a year in Shanghai, but has seen its market share drop from 9% last year to 6.5% in the first seven months of this year.
Swimming against the tide are Toyota and Honda. Toyota is building a solely owned EV factory in Shanghai for production in 2027 while Honda, despite a 10% drop in China sales last year , has just started EV production at a jv factory with GAC in Guangzhou and also has a dedicated EV factory at Wuhan. It has capacity to make 240,000 EVs a year in Chins.
Nissan, has now sunk to Japan’s fifth largest car maker and is a takeover target. Foxconn and Mitsubishi have expressed interest in a deal and merger talks with Honda began earlier this week.
Nissan has been in trouble before. It was heading for bankruptcy in 1999 when Carlos Ghosn became COO. His ‘Nissan Revival Plan’ called for profitability in 2000 and he said he’d resign if it wasn’t achieved. It was achieved. Ghosn was pushed out in 2018 since when annual vehicle sales have dropped from 5.5 million to 3.2 million units, cumulative losses have reached $30 billion and market share has fallen from 12% to 8%
