In late 2024, as Nissan faced financial trouble, it announcedintentions to merge with fellow Japanese car company Honda, a move that would’ve created the third-largest automaker in the world. By February 2025, however,that plan had been scrapped, though the two companies continued to discuss ways to work together. Today, we finally have an idea of how that collaboration might look, with Nissan and Honda announcing a joint-development agreement for electronic control units and software development.
The joint-development agreement, signed on August 31, will see Nissan and Honda work together to create standardized electronic control units for the companies’ next-generation software-defined vehicles. Nissan and Honda will also partner on the in-vehicle operating system, crucial parts of the middleware, and the vehicle-control software that will run on these ECUs.
The electronic architecture that these components will form will arrive in next-generation vehicles starting in the fiscal year 2029, the companies revealed in identical statements. These upcoming cars are being referred to as “software-defined vehicles,” a trendy yet vague industry term that essentially describes a vehicle where functionality is centered around software and not hardware as cars have traditionally been designed.
Nissan and Honda say their plan to work together on ECUs and software for upcoming vehicles will lead to “faster development cycles and more efficient investment.” This will make both companies more competitive in an increasingly intense global market, especially as Chinese automakers pile on the pressure as they expand to new markets and rapidly update models with new technology. Few other details were provided about the upcoming software that will be used in future Nissans and Hondas, but more information should emerge in the coming years.