Speaking of dying marques, Mitsubishi is reportedly on the verge of announcing deal with electronics giant Foxconn. The Taiwanese firm, best known for producing the iPhone for Apple, would build electric vehicles for Mitsubishi. This venture move would mark Foxconn’s first venture in automobile manufacturing.
As reported by Kyodo News, Mitsubishi would sell Foxconn-made electric cars under its own brand, though which specific models have yet to be determined. From the article:
Mitsubishi Motors will maintain its existing manufacturing bases while working with Foxconn to optimize its production capabilities, the sources said.
The deal is expected to shorten the development, production and delivery timeline while allowing the carmaker to allocate more funds to technology development by cutting production costs.
Mitsubishi, in which Nissan has a 25 percent stake, had been part of the merger negotiations between Honda and Nissan. It opened up talks with Foxconn after that deal fell through last month. It was rumored that Honda was more interested in Mitsubishi’s substantial market share in southeast Asia than Nissan itself. Honda said that it would reconsider coming back to the table if Nissan changed its leadership but now, even with a new CEO the pot might be significantly less sweet for Honda.
Foxconn had been eyeing up Nissan prior to its discussions with Honda, and now Mitsubishi can potentially fill that void. However, there’s also reports that Foxconn is in talks with two Japanese companies. In a separate deal exploring EV software Honda, Nissan and Mitsubishi are still, for now, in a strategic partnership.
Well, I hope this would make you guys feel happy / okay with this TL;DR comment that I’ve made it hardly right here.
I think it would still make no and / or little sense for one Japanese carmaker like Mitsubishi (Motors) to be rising like a phoenix similar to Nissan and Honda, especially with both of the three – plus its fellow compatriots who are already under Toyota’s hands like Daihatsu, Hino (Motors), Subaru, Suzuki, Mazda and Isuzu as well as the fact that Hino and acquisitor / owner Toyota had histories with Nissan’s and Mitsubishi’s current partner Renault – are already seen as weak and even overlooked in the European market, (13-12 in a half years ago, Daihatsu became the last Japanese carmaker to withdraw from Europe before Mitsubishi did the same with the UK and Irish markets in 2021, but similarly, Mitsubishi had also closed down its Born, Netherlands plant in the same year Suzuki ended its carmaking operations in the US and eight in a half years later Nissan and Honda have decided to terminate their European manufacturing facilities like with the former in Barcelona, Spain in 2020 and the latter in Swindon, England in Britain the following year.)
Foxconn would have been a worst-kept secret due to its origins and ownership of an already-ignored Japanese company (but electronics and appliances) like Sharp – in addition that Akio Toyoda would’ve been right that non-ICE-powered / non-diesel-powered cars would only get into trouble, but to say that Mitsubishi may still remember its history with Stellantis when the latter wasn’t established yet. Mitsubishi had not only supplied its cars to Fiat / Chrysler and PSA Peugeot Citroen – like Fiat Fullback, Peugeot 4007 / Citroen C-Crosser, among others, but the former had a similar relationship with Suzuki and Mazda, with Suzuki supplying the first-generation SX4 to the Italian car manufacturer as Fiat Sedici and similarly Mazda did the same with the MX-5 / Miata / Roadster as Fiat 124 Spider, (As I’ve wondered before that an attempt for Stellantis to partner with Honda and the Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi alliance would be something like how General Motors / GM acquired Daewoo and replaced it with Chevrolet, then Stellantis would have itself to replace / liquidate Honda, Nissan and Mitsubishi with Jeep, Alfa Romeo, Maserati, Renault and / or even Fiat given that neither Stellantis nor Renauit have significant marketing presences in the Southeast Asian / Oceanian region especially with Stellantis already count Malaysia as its key market there courtesy of Peugeot.)
The Honda-Nissan-Mitsubishi saga hasn’t been ended seven years after the Carlos Ghosn affair began, the one thing that a Honda-Nissan (aka HNM as M means Mitsubishi) partnership had only made lack of and / or little sense is that Honda is honestly not well-known for making / developing cars catered and bulit for the toughest / roughest conditions just as Honda is practically not known for building cars aimed for commercial uses – which is why it would be hard to see a Honda car dressing up as a taxi (cab) elsewhere overseas, so while a joint Stellantis-Renault partnership would have Honda, Nissan (Datsun) and Mitsubishi in it, histories between American Motors (AMC, which had Jeep in it) and Renault that ended up in the minds of Chrysler, Peugeot and Toyota may appear to be interesting / useful because as Scotty Kilmer had said about Toyota and Honda partnering each other on YouTube – then I think it would be safe and better off for Toyota to partner jointly with Honda (which may prevent it from dealing with Nissan like how Honda refused to deal with Mitsubishi between 1991, 1992 and 1993) and thus have both / each of them acquire plus hold shares in Stellantis and Renault… (So therefore, it may have a senior Japanese automaker like Toyota to put its fellow and overlooked compatriots like Honda / Acura, NIssan / Infiniti, Mitsubishi and others out of business like when Peugeot took over and liquidated Chrysler Europe / Chrysler UK in 1978, which left the former PSA group to benefit from the British market so for Toyota taking over and pushing H-N-M and the rest of Team Japan into bankruptcy would gain Toyota from the Mexican market for ex.)
But in conclusion, I think a joint Toyota-Honda-Renault-Stellantis partnership may not be a sign of defence against Hyundai / Kia / Genesis since its already given the fact that South Koreans profoundly neglect Japanese cars and marques to be running in South Korea – due to the latter’s history with Japan, but also, that kind of automotive behemoth / union would have the Mitsubishi Corporation – which also has relations with Isuzu – to be involved in that too, and likewise, the Mitsubishi Corp may act as an anchor to that carmaking alliance – which would have been better off than the one Honda and Nissan want with each other – along with Honda for Toyota to be one Japanese company owning shares / operating European companies, so if that would lead to Honda rebadging Dacia cars then Toyota may end up rebadging Renault cars and find it better off than what Nissan and Mitsubishi does… (And the loss of Honda, Nissan, Mitsubishi and its fellow compatriots except for Toyota and possibly Lexus would be ideal for that of Jeep for example to gain benefit from that, as Toyota already the sole Japanese representative of the World Rally Championship, then putting Renault and Stellantis in the WRC with Honda-Nissan-Mitsubishi money for ex. would be something that the series would have Hyundai and Ford to pull themselves from that motorsports.)