Nissan And Honda Lag Behind 2 Years In SDV Race As Chinese Startups Rise
- Nissan and Honda announced collaboration in the SDV field, but have fallen behind by two years.
- The two companies had a strained relationship after failed merger talks.
- On August 31, they revealed plans to jointly develop next-generation software-defined vehicles.
- Chinese new automakers are rapidly expanding their influence in the market.
- The details and future direction of the collaboration remain unclear.
Nissan and Honda finally set their next-gen "software-defined vehicle" (SDV) collaboration on Aug 31, but the belated handshake follows two wasted years—for anyone tracking auto supply chains, the story isn't the reunion, it's the lateness. After their merger talks collapsed, relations soured; only now are they concretely cooperating on SDVs, where a car's core value shifts from hardware to continuously updatable software. In those two years, Chinese upstarts expanded fast—the battleground has moved from engines to software and iteration speed. Legacy makers excel at mechanics and manufacturing, but the SDV era rewards software development and update cadence—exactly what new EV players do best and incumbents do worst. The two-year drift epitomizes old automakers' slow reaction to this shift. Paths: they jointly catch up on SDVs and share R&D costs; cooperation stalls over integration and control, ceding more ground; or Japanese makers are forced to accelerate alliances or buy in software, reshaping the supply chain. Taiwan has automotive electronics, ECU and software suppliers—Japanese makers going SDV enlarges the "software and electronics content" pie. But if Japanese brands keep falling behind, their suppliers suffer too. Watch whether this deal sets a concrete production timeline and how Chinese players' share moves in Japanese home markets.