It’s official, Nissan Motor Co. and Honda Motor Co. are discussing a potential merger.

The plan, if it goes through, is for a single holding company to own both companies and for the merger to become complete by August 2026.

“Today marks a pivotal moment as we begin discussions on business integration that has the potential to shape our future. If realized, I believe that by uniting the strengths of both companies, we can deliver unparalleled value to customers worldwide who appreciate our respective brands. Together, we can create a unique way for them to enjoy cars that neither company could achieve alone,” said Nissan director, president, CEO and representative executive officer Makoto Uchida, in a Dec. 23 news release.

The companies said the merger would further accelerate the automakers’ efforts toward achieving a carbon-neutral society and a zero-traffic-fatality society.

The two companies have already been collaborating, such as on developing technologies.

The two companies said the business environment for both automakers and the wider automotive industry has rapidly changed and the speed of technological innovation has accelerated.

A memorandum of understanding signed by the two companies on Dec. 23 signals their intention to consider integration, with an aim to maintain global competitiveness and for both companies to continue to deliver more attractive products to customers worldwide.

“Creation of new mobility value by bringing together the resources including knowledge, talents, and technologies that Honda and Nissan have been developing over the long years is essential to overcome challenging environmental shifts that the auto industry is facing,” said Toshihiro Mibe, Honda director and representative executive officer, in a news release.

“Honda and Nissan are two companies with distinctive strengths. We are still at the stage of starting our review, and we have not decided on a business integration yet, but in order to find a direction for the possibility of business integration by the end of January 2025, we strive to be the one and only leading company that creates new mobility value through chemical reaction that can only be driven through synthesis of the two teams.”

In case you are wondering where Mitsubishi Motors fits into all of this, that company is partly owned by Nissan.

Nissan held approximately 34 per cent of Mitsubishi until Mitsubishi bought back 10 per cent from Nissan in November, leaving Nissan as the owner of a 24 per cent share of Mitsubishi.

Mitsubishi is also involved in the merger talks.

There’s plenty of reporting of outside this blog what this means from a business perspective and for the automotive industry, as well as why the companies would want to merge. We won’t get to all of that here, but below is a bit of the companies’ impact in Canada.

Canadian employment

A lot of Canadians depend on these companies’ success.

Honda and Acura, which have about 280 dealerships across Canada, employ approximately 19,000 people, including some 4,200 employees at the Honda of Canada Mfg. assembly plant in Alliston, Ont.

Honda is also developing four manufacturing facilities across Ontario to support electric vehicle manufacturing. The company anticipates two of those facilities, an EV assembly plant and a battery manufacturing plant in Alliston, will create a minimum of 1,000 jobs.

Nissan Canada directly employs approximately 450 full-time staff in offices in Vancouver, B.C., Calgary, Alta., Mississauga, Ont., and Kirkland, Que., which doesn’t include the employees at some 209 independent Nissan and 39 Infiniti dealerships in Canada.

Mitsubishi Motors Sales of Canada employs more than 1,200 people across its 97 dealerships across the country.

The above are direct jobs, which doesn’t include all the indirect jobs created by these companies.