Nissan hasn’t stopped speaking to Honda, regardless of merger talks between the two companies collapsing earlier this 12 months. Each automakers have confirmed next-gen fashions for his or her respective halo supercars, and final week, we reported unique new particulars about the new Nissan GT-R’s planned hybrid powertrain and production timeline. Now, there’s motive to contemplate that the 2 juggernauts may inform one another’s growth.
Final week on the 2025 New York Auto Present, Nissan North America Senior Vice President and Chief Planning Officer, Ponz Pandikuthira, informed The Drive that discussions between the producers are nonetheless ongoing. And, with out being prompted, the chief additionally painted an image of how the next-generation GT-R may very well be co-developed alongside Honda and Acura’s forthcoming NSX on a shared platform, which he insists is feasible although Acura has said earlier than that the following NSX will likely be totally electrical.
“Can we do a next-generation NSX and GT-R off the identical platform, make the NSX genuine to what it stands for and make a GT-R genuine to what it stands for? So they don’t seem to be clones?” Pandikuthira requested rhetorically. “Are you able to co-develop two vehicles like that? I believe we will.”
“The authenticity of this issues,” Pandikuthira continued. “An Acura NSX had a really totally different origin of what that automobile was. Tremendous light-weight, all aluminum.” The VP described the supercars’ variations because the NSX being “tremendous exact, light-weight, aerospace execution, whereas a GT-R is a brute, however a complicated brute.”
Pandikuthira stated that he “can be optimistic” that these two distinctive interpretations of a flagship supercar may very well be developed off shared expertise. He additionally famous that Nissan’s new CEO, Ivan Espinosa, was one of many individuals main the Honda and Nissan merger negotiations whereas in his earlier function as Nissan’s Chief Planning Officer.
Espinosa has been working with Honda continually and, in response to Pandikuthira, “by no means stopped speaking with Honda.” Whereas Pandikuthira says that discussions of a full-blown merger have certainly ceased, it’s essential to keep in mind that the 2 automakers announced a “strategic partnership” to collaborate on future merchandise final August, months earlier than anybody spoke of them uniting. That separate workstream of becoming a member of forces on particular initiatives remains to be very a lot alive, Pandikuthira informed us.
“We’d like collaboration,” Pandikuthira stated. “We’re going to want partnerships to ship automobiles. I believe partnerships are going to be a key a part of our future.”
Apart from Honda, Nissan may forge different alliances that haven’t but come to gentle. “Possibly the person companions usually are not but recognized, nevertheless it is smart,” Pandikuthira stated, broadly referring to partnerships to make sure the auto business’s survival.
The Nissan North America boss famous that Aston Martin is ready to deliver sure vehicles to market “solely as a result of they collaborated with Mercedes-Benz,” referencing how the British marque sources engines from AMG. “However they aren’t clones of one another,” Pandikuthira added.
Subsequent-Gen Nissan GT-R and Acura NSX Already within the Works
The automotive panorama is altering at a speedy tempo, and everybody’s product plans are shifting accordingly. Again in 2021, The Drive broke the information that the Acura NSX would return for a third generation. Since then, the follow-up to the second-gen, hybrid NSX that ended production in 2022 has typically been anticipated to take the type of a high-performance EV.
Nonetheless, final summer time, former Honda International Government Vice President Shinji Aoyama introduced some uncertainty into the mannequin’s future. Whereas Aoyama clearly said that Honda was making ready an electrical sports activities automobile, he indicated that the corporate might select to offer it a brand new title. “We’re going to introduce a sports activities mannequin, we might not name it NSX however a sort of NSX sort of auto,” Aoyama informed The Drive on the time. The exec additionally added that this automobile wouldn’t incorporate solid-state battery expertise, because it received’t be prepared but.
Are Honda’s “sports activities” EV and the third-gen NSX one and the identical? We simply don’t know but. In the meantime, Nissan personnel have just lately painted a clearer image of what to anticipate from the “R36” GT-R, which Pandikuthira informed us is due in three to 5 years. Though Nissan has hinted prior to now that the following GT-R may very well be battery-electric, The Drive reported last week that the flagship supercar is now underneath growth as a hybrid or plug-in hybrid with a turbocharged engine.
Throughout our dialog final week in New York, Pandikuthira was clear that none of this must be taken as affirmation that the long run GT-R and NSX are being co-developed. Quite, the VP believes “it may be performed.” Judging by how main business gamers have teamed up to realize enthusiast cars lately, it’s not arduous to think about Nissan and Honda giving it a shot.
Received a tip? Electronic mail us at [email protected]
