If beggars can’t be choosers, then Nissan must be emerging from its financial hardship. The automaker is reportedly looking to borrow other automaker’s platforms, but only if that sharing goes both ways.
“Nissan is open for business with other automakers,” Nissan Americas product planning boss Ponz Pandikuthira said in an interview with Automotive News at a media event in Nashville, near the automaker’s headquarters in Franklin, Tennessee. He said Nissan is in “conversations” with multiple potential partners and that the first deal could be confirmed in the next year. But these deals come with one important term.
“It must be reciprocal,” Pandikuthira said. “We would not engage with a partner just to buy a vehicle, or platform, or piece of tech. That’s what makes it a long-term commitment instead of just a transaction.”
As for which platforms Nissan might offer to other automakers, Pandikuthira said Nissan has “some really interesting plans for the next generation of Frontier” and that “we’d be interested in a discussion” with an automaker looking to create a suitably differentiated model using its platform. That body-on-frame platform is also expected to underpin a resurrected Xterra and accommodate hybrid powertrains.
Speaking of hybrids, Nissan is also seeing interest from other automakers in its e-Power hybrid system, Pandikuthira said. Slated to make its North American debut next year in the redesigned Rogue crossover, e-Power is a unique series hybrid system in which the gasoline engine does not directly drive the wheels at any time. Nissan has held off on bringing e-Power to this market due to issues with vibration and highway fuel economy, but claims to have solved them with the latest third-generation version.
Pandikuthira is also interested in partnering with other automakers on EVs to create better economies of scale, saying that Nissan was open to joint development of an EV, “or maybe a family of EVs.”
Nissan
This past week, Pandikuthira told The Drive and other media that Nissan is already planning for at least three “partner” models either based on other automakers’ platforms or jointly developed with partners. Automotive News reported in October that Nissan was in talks with Ford and Stellantis on partnerships, and that Honda and Mitsubishi had also expressed interest.
Nissan is Mitsubishi’s largest shareholder, but collaboration between the two automakers has been limited up to now. The current Mitsubishi Outlander and Nissan Rogue share a platform, and the 2026 Nissan Rogue Plug-In Hybrid is a clone of the Outlander PHEV.