Honda and Nissan Finally Agree a Partnership - of Sorts.

Remember that failed merger? Well Honda & Nissan (and maybe Mitsubishi too) announced a few days ago a partnership that will share the brains of their next generation of cars.

Honda and Nissan have signed a deal to jointly develop the core computers and software that will run their next-generation ‘software-defined vehicles.’

First cars using it are aimed at 2029. Mitsubishi-unsurprisingly-is sniffing around the same table.

In plain English: they want fewer separate control boxes under the bonnet and more of the car’s behaviour sitting in software that can be updated over the air.

Think of it as trying to do what Tesla has been doing for years, only they are starting from the old world of dozens of little ECUs each doing one job.

They will standardise the high-performance main computer controllers that look after different areas of the car, the in-vehicle operating system, middleware, and the vehicle control software.

Each brand can still add in its own character, ADAS flavour etc and infotainment on top.

Honda is also looking again at its own Asimo OS plans in light of this.

Nissan and Honda announcing the tie up at the recent Press Conference. (Credit Honda Global)

The full merger talks died last year after Nissan refused to take the minor role. This is the leftovers that seem to make sense: split the enormous cost of writing modern vehicle software and hope the resulting platform is cheaper and quicker to evolve than doing it alone or the old fashioned way.

Honda and Nissan’s 2029 catch-up plans look super-late. Toyota already has a high-volume model on the road collecting data, with plans to spread it across more of its own range and share it with Subaru, Mazda and Suzuki. Tesla of course has been iterating this approach for well over a decade, with most other manufacturers seriously behind.

Honda and Nissan leaving the distributed-ECU era, when it does arrive, gives the promises that cars get better after you buy them instead of slowly feeling dated.

The takeaway here is two of Japan’s biggest names admitting they cannot afford to do this separately.

A sign of how expensive the software, and race has become.

(Photo /source Honda Global)