FCA Makes Merger Offer To Renault - What Does This Mean For Mitsubishi And Nissan?

They need to get out. fast !

This is a massive win for Dodge/Chrysler/Jeep/Ram.

This is also a win for Nissan/Mitsubishi.

Fairly rapidly, a new Dodge Dakota could come from the Nissan Navara or the Mitsubishi "Bareback" and Nissan could quickly replace the truly horrible Titan with a Ram.

Nissan/Renault have good platforms for the crossovers ChryCo needs.

This is a good merger.

@MD-Do you think Nissan will still be part of the group or shunned? From what I am reading it does not seem so. Time will tell.

Nissan is essential to this deal far more than Renault.

Va te faire foutre!

a negative x a negative does not a equal a positive in the their case

But it's a vast improvement over the dimwitted Italians.

Nissan doesn't want a merger with Renault, which Renault/French Government/Goshen were after. Nissan sure doesn't want this. So they get to be on their own. They need a partner, but who? GM? However with the French and Italian governments both wanting no plant closings where plant closings need to happen to rationalize capacity to the European market, this merger will not have the "efficiencies" predicted. It may not happen.

I know some of you will vomit at this thought, but Elon Musk should do a reverse merger with Nissan (Nissan can split with Renault and put itself up for sale) so Nissan gets instant access to some prestige and a public stock listing and Tesla gets some short term (REAL) cash flow that they can use to shovel money into their completely and totally unprofitable vehicle operations.

In the process, Tesla should spin off Solar City stock to Tesla shareholders and then that can wither. This would be a financial engineering exercise but it would keep Tesla afloat longer. Then Musk can build Model 3's at an unused Nissan plant somewhere and they can really sell for $35,000.

It would be a brilliant plan

Nissan would just muddle along regardless, but Tesla would have to acquire Nissan and have a "management sharing" model (i.e two CEO's) and the two companies would basically co-exist like 2 year-old toddlers playing next to one another.

Since Musk's goal seems to relish power, ego-gratification, and money ($2 billion in pay during 2018, shocking!)
https://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-compensation-over-2-billion-2019-5
(Spies, where is the story on THAT!)

Since leaders of Nissan seem to like power and money (ahem, Carlos Ghosn), Musk would be a perfect successor to Ghosn.

I am not so sure that Nissan could put itself up for sale
Renault owns 43 % of the stock of Nissan. In a country where financial institutions own but do not regularly vote large blocks - that is pretty much controlling interest. It is VERY VERY rare that even in US large corporations you see 80+ percent of the stock voting on such a measure.

This is the nightmare of Scotty Kilmer - Renaut+Fiat+Chrysler/Dodge together! hahahaha
PS: Nissan and Mitsubishi must escape this sinking ship right now

Mitsubishi is currently under water it's sinking so badly.

The wildcard in this whole deal is Nissan. They need Nissan in the fold to be a global player. Nissan has the best autonomous and EV tech of the 3 automakers, they also have a strong position in Asia which FCA/Renault don't. Nissan does a good volume of smaller passenger vehicles in North America which compliments FCAs lineup very well.

Agree. Mitsubishi can be killed off.

The quid pro quo is for Renault to give Nissan their control back and to kill Mitsubishi and give that market to Nissan. This is a massive win.

Most impressed by Elkann engineering this deal if he is able to bring Nissan and Mitsubishi into the deal, he is suddenly the most powerful person in the automotive industry.

The overlooked part of the deal is that FCA must shed just short of 3 billion in value to bring it in line with the value of Renault. They plan to do via spinning off robotics firm Comau and paying a special dividend to share holders of 2.5 billion.

A better move would be to spinoff Maserati and Alfa to Ferrari since there really isn’t much benefit in the merger for those companies and would at the same time protect the Italian heritage companies from the mismanagement of Auburn Hills.

I can hardly wait for the Fuego Hell Cat - “Fuego Chien du Hades”

Ditch Alfa Romeo and Maserati because both are complete sales failures.

Maserati was doing fine operating at a 13% margin with steady sales increases until Marchionne put Chrysler management in charge of Maserati/Alfa. Maserati’s HQ effectively shifted from Modena to Auburn Hills as long time Maserati staffing were replaced with rotating Chrysler personnel.

Sales and profitability began to collapse within months, margins dropped from over 13% to under 3%. Marchionne just prior to his death admitted to mistakes made with Maserati and Alfa. One of the first moves by new CEO Manley was to reappoint Harald Wester to the big chair in hopes of turning the company around. While Wester is based in Modena a lot of key positions are still held by Chrysler personnel in Auburn Hills. Returning Maserati as a sub-brand to Ferrari is the best way to revive the company.

Maserati and Alfa have no value if spun off. Neither has the resources to develop vehicles on its own given their sales volumes. If FCA can pull off a merger with Renault and Nissan they have the resources to position Alfa against BMW/MB/Audi (could share development costs with Infiniti) and Maserati against Porsche. The combined entity does not have any strong luxury brands so they would be better off keeping Alfa/Maserati which both have some brand appeal but years of weak product.

The asinine plan of Alfa against BMW and the ludicrous Maserati against Porsche needs to be abandoned. Maserati should be aimed at BMW and priced advantageously. Alfa Romeo should be aimed at Subaru.

Obviously it won’t happen overnight but with all those resources they could certainly position Alfa/Maserati well. Why try to compete with Subaru...improved Jeep crossovers could easily do that. Alfa and Maserati have storied brands. Infiniti underpinned vehicles (reliable and decent dynamics) with Italian flair could do well in the marketplace.

No one is going to bring up how the C pillar is influenced from the 2011 Kia Optima huh? If we switched their years then people would had accused the Kia of copying.