Nissan’s turnaround plan already includes shutting seven factories, closing two design studios, and cutting roughly 20,000 jobs. Now add one more unsettling detail: the automaker’s own CEO won’t rule out the company eventually being sold.
A New CEO Inherits a Financial Crisis
Ivan Espinosa took over as Nissan’s chief executive after the board voted to replace Makoto Uchida, stepping into the job just as the company launched one of the most aggressive restructuring programs in its history. The numbers explain why. Nissan expects to post a net loss of about $4.2 billion for the fiscal year ending March 31, on the heels of roughly $4.5 billion in losses the year before. Two consecutive multi-billion-dollar deficits are the kind of pressure that forces a leadership team to question the company’s long-term viability rather than just trim a budget.
What the Restructuring Actually Cuts
The plan closes seven factories and two design studios while eliminating approximately 20,000 positions from Nissan’s global workforce over the next several years. Leadership frames it as trimming excess manufacturing capacity that’s been dragging on the balance sheet, but a cut of that size — spread gradually across multiple years — signals a company trying to reset its entire cost structure rather than patch a single bad quarter.
Espinosa has been candid that running the company through this stretch is relentless, with several major problems unfolding at once: cost reduction, product development, and staying competitive against rivals with deeper pockets, all at the same time.
The Sale Question Nissan Won’t Fully Close the Door On
When asked directly about Nissan’s future, Espinosa didn’t dismiss the idea that the company could eventually be sold under the right circumstances — a notably open-ended answer for a sitting CEO to give. Nissan has not announced any plan to pursue a sale and says it remains focused on fixing its internal performance first, but the comment underscores just how uncertain the company’s long-term independence looks right now.
Speeding Up How Fast New Cars Reach Showrooms
One concrete turnaround target: Nissan wants to cut the development timeline for an all-new model down to 37 months, with follow-up models built on that same platform reaching production in roughly 30 months. An aging lineup is one of the clearest ways an automaker loses ground to competitors who refresh their models faster, so accelerating that cycle is central to Espinosa’s bet on staying relevant.
Why the Honda Merger Talks Collapsed
Nissan’s appetite for partnerships isn’t new. About a year ago, Nissan and Honda discussed forming a deeper alliance framed initially as a merger of equals. Those talks fell apart after Honda proposed appointing most of the combined company’s directors and its chief executive — a structure Nissan read as a takeover rather than a partnership, which ended the discussions.
A Shrinking Renault Safety Net
Nissan’s relationship with longtime partner Renault has also loosened. Renault still owns 35.71 percent of Nissan, but only 17.05 percent of that stake is held directly — the rest sits inside a French trust structure where Renault is simply the beneficiary. That’s a far cry from the tightly integrated alliance the two companies once ran, and it leaves Nissan with more independence but noticeably less direct backing from its oldest partner. Renault, meanwhile, has been building outside relationships of its own, including a recent agreement with Ford to develop and build two electric vehicles under the Ford badge, with the first expected in 2028.
For now, Nissan says it’s staying independent while it works through factory closures, staffing cuts, and a faster product pipeline. Whether that’s enough to avoid the sale scenario Espinosa wouldn’t rule out is likely to depend on how quickly those changes show up on the balance sheet.