I think it’s great that Honda makes a large, unibody pickup in the form of the Ridgeline. I’m a big Ridgeline fan. If I needed a truck for some vaguely truck-like things, I would seriously consider a Ridgeline. It’s not a Tacoma, though. Nor is it a Ranger. It’s not the truck for everyone. But what if the tariffs could drive Honda to build another, more conventional truck here? That could be cool.
It would be especially beneficial for Nissan, which has too much production capacity in the United States for products that are, at the moment, not particularly aligned with the vibes. The Morning Dump is all about vibes today, and the vibes at Tesla aren’t great. The electric automaker is now a Texas-based company, which means it has to hold a shareholder meeting from time to time. For some obvious reasons, Tesla CEO Elon Musk might not be keen on doing so, but the company has begrudgingly agreed to hold one.
My sense of the car-buying vibes has been that the only cars that would appreciably increase in the coming months would likely be affordable crossovers/sedans and EVs. Maybe my vibe detector is off, because sales slowed a lot in May.
What’s a good final vibe check? China! Maybe not a good final vibe check…
[Ed Note: My god this blog has more vibes than the NSG370 shifter on a Jeep Wrangler JK. -DT]
Nissan Reportedly Might Build Trucks For Honda In The United States
Nissan has three major manufacturing facilities (two for vehicles, one for powertrains) in the United States, which is about two more than it needs, given the company’s continuing lackluster sales. The brand was down more than 6% year-over-year in Q2, which isn’t great considering that the company’s sales were also weak last year. The company’s bread-and-butter Rogue is stumbling, and the Frontier is basically a niche product at this point.
This could have maybe been solved by merging with Honda, but Nissan did not want to be anyone’s subsidiary. When Nissan’s executives rejected a Honda tie-up, they probably weren’t aware of just how damaging President Trump’s tariff threats would be. Nissan’s most popular cars are not the ones built in the United States, unfortunately.
While the tariffs are potentially very bad for Nissan, there’s a possible silver lining. Building out plants and manufacturing capacity is not easy or quick to do, so what if someone could swoop in and absorb some of that capacity? Enter Honda. According to Nikkei Asia, Honda and Nissan are pondering something along those lines:
The site, one of Nissan’s two U.S. vehicle plants, currently focuses on models such as the Frontier, a midsize pickup truck designed for commercial use. Under the deal being discussed, Nissan would make the trucks, which would carry Honda nameplates, and Honda would sell the vehicles under its brand in the U.S.
Pickup trucks — light-duty vehicles with an open cargo bed behind the driver’s seat — account for 20% of new car sales in the American market.
In the U.S., Honda only offers compact pickup trucks. Partnering with Nissan could help the company reach consumers who are seeking full-size pickups.
This is getting interesting. I’ve already mentioned that, according to reports, Nissan and Mitsubishi are going to get together to produce a truck for North America. This vehicle was supposed to be built in Mexico, but there’s no big reason why it can’t be built in the United States, given the “Mr. Japan” of it all.
If you’re curious what driving one of those might be like, Lewin gave the Aussie-spec Mitsubishi Triton a workout.
Tesla Will Have A Meeting In November
What’s it like to be a Tesla investor right now? It depends on when you got in, I suppose. If you bought shares exactly five years ago, then you’re up 200%, which is about double what you’d have earned from a NASDAQ composite index fund. Not bad. If you bought in exactly a year ago, you’re up about 28%, which is great for a single-year investment. What if you were moved by the post-election hype six months ago? Congrats, you’re down 23%.
Tesla is now a Texas-based company after Elon Musk got tired of going to the Delaware Chancery Court, which brought into question the legality of his getting the biggest paycheck in human history. As a Texas company, Tesla must hold a meeting within 13 months of the last one if the shareholders request one (and some did). Initially, Tesla filed that it didn’t have a date for a meeting and didn’t seem in a hurry to hold one, but a quick online campaign by investors seems to have convinced the company to set a date.
Why the reticence? The AP has some ideas:
The annual meeting, given Tesla’s fortunes this year, has the potential to be a raucous event and it is unclear how investors will react to the delay, which is rare for any major U.S. corporation.
Tesla shares have plunged 27% this year, largely due to blowback over Musk’s affiliation with President Donald Trump, as well as rising competition.
Many shareholders have been miffed by Musk’s participation in the Trump administration this year, saying he needs to focus on his EV company which is facing extraordinary pressures.
“An annual meeting provides shareholders with the opportunity to hear directly from the board about these concerns, and to vote for or against directors, the board’s approach to executive compensation, and other matters of material importance,” the group said in the letter.
Maybe Grok can answer the questions.
May EV Registrations Down 5.9%
I like registration data as a view of the car market. There’s a bit of a lag (we’re just getting May’s numbers, via Automotive News), but there’s no hiding. What’s it show? New EV registrations dropped by 5.9% year-over-year, representing just 7.1% of the total market in the United States.
This isn’t a big shock, given that the threat of removing the $7,500 IRA tax credit for EVs drove people to purchase a lot of EVs in the first quarter. With a date for the end of these subsidies now set, I think that the market will rebound. Maybe.
Tesla continues to be a loser (relative to its past self), down 12% in spite of the Cybertruck and refreshed Model Y. In this case, being a loser means selling about 5 times as many cars as the next biggest brand, which is Chevrolet (up 122% year-over-year). All General Motors brands are up, and if you add in Honda and Acura, the company is starting to take a bite out of Tesla.
China Has The Cards
The rest of the world is starting to wake up to the idea that, while Rare Earth metals are key to making electric cars, they’re also necessary for most products that need motors or magnets. For the moment, the country with the best access to these materials and the greatest ability to process them is China.
How’s that going for everyone? According to an interview in Bloomberg, it could be going better:
A diplomatic breakthrough with China is the only short-term fix for easing the shortage of rare-earth magnets, a top executive at one of the largest auto components maker said, as the exports curbs by the East Asian nation chokes the production of electric vehicles.
“In the short term, unless we have a kind of rapprochement with China and get magnet supply flowing, there are limited options for damage control,” Vivek Vikram Singh, chief executive officer, Sona BLW Precision Forgings Ltd. told Bloomberg News.
The curbs underscore China’s dominant position in the global supply chain for this crucial raw material used in making cars to mobile phones. It’s forcing companies worldwide to re-evaluate sourcing strategies as well as prodding governments to accelerate efforts for local production of rare earth magnets.
Diplomacy, how does it work?
What I’m Listening To While Writing TMD
Hear me out. What if the Song of the Summer was “Everybody Laughs” by David Byrne? I’d love to live in that world.
The Big Question
What should a Honda truck be?
Top photo: Mitsubishi/render by Peter Vieira
I was interested in the Honda truck until the Nissan tie-up was mentioned. Honda has absolutely nothing to gain by sacrificing its reputation for reliability by rebadging Nissan junk.
I owned a Frontier years ago, it was the first vehicle that I ever took a loan for, I typically drove cheap crap I paid cash for, and it was still the least reliable vehicle that I’ve ever owned. That’s not even getting into how the Nissan dealership & Nissan corporate treated me for having the audacity to demand that the truck they sold me actually be able to move under its own power.
On the Nissan front, I recently sat in a Frontier Pro-4X while my MIL was buying a(nother) Rogue and the seats seemed ridiculously comfortable. I have an 08 Tacoma and if that needed to be replaced by a new truck, I would consider the Frontier as it seems about as close to my Taco as a new truck could get. But alas, its a Nissan product so there is that
A Honda truck should have a hybrid drivetrain with a manual transmission and a diesel engine displacing no more than 660 cc, a BRAT-cum-Fit Magic Seat in the eight-foot bed made possible by a cab-over design, and be offered only in bright red, bright blue, bright yellow, bright orange, bright green, British Racing Green, and a rich metallic brown.
Failing that, Honda should buy up the rights to build the TELO.
Not a rebadged Nissan.
Honestly I’d probably go full in on independent suspension. If people want a technical off roader they go with a Jeep. Noone makes a solid front axle pickup anymore. Honda would be better off making a AWD or 4WD pickup with independent suspension all around.
For the US at least the future of small pickups is electric (with or without a range extender) or hybrid with an e-CVT due to the Footprint rule putting obscene MPG standards on small pickups while today’s massive pickups skate on by with lower MPG requirements.
Genuinely I believe that Nissan and Honda should merge, but really I see no way that they can while keeping their names. Honda by Nissan doesn’t sound right. Frankly I think Honda has the better brand, and for basically everything but the Trucks and their BEVs Nissan has been dying. GT-R is gone, the CVTs in their cars make them gone under 100K miles, etc.
I say they should just allow themselves to be absorbed by Honda, Honda has the better brand and better brand reputation overall anyways.
Honda truck should probably be Civic platform, hybrid competitor to the Maverick. They have the Ridgeline. Go smaller.
A Honda truck should be a ute based on the Accord.
The idea of partnering up for a “full size” Honda truck likely doesn’t mean a Honda designed truck. Likely it means taking a Nissan product in 90% or better form and slapping a badge on it. Ah la Honda Prologue, aka Honda Blazer.
I think taking the Nissan Titan, if you are really talking full size, is not a winner for Honda. After all, Honda just can’t badge engineer a Titan and that suddenly be thought of as sliced bread. Honda doesn’t have the truck pedigree to begin to pull that off. The Titan had it’s issues and competition that ultimately forced it to cease to exist.
Taking a Frontier would compete and cannibalize the Ridgeline sales. The Frontier is an okay truck. Perhaps better than the Titan was in its respective class. Still don’t see it having some worthy set of attributes that justify it getting a Honda badge.
Nissan doesn’t have anything else that is ‘certified’ for the US market, truck-wise, for Honda. That leaves Nissan bringing some partner’s truck to the US and meeting all the US regulatory requirements to sell it as a Honda. Could also mean some re-engineering to build some hybrid (not actual hybrid) product made up of some of this and some of that with a pinch of something else. That takes money and I’m not sure that is the intent of Honda and Nissan wanting to work together.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HWyjfbS7MMA
What should a Honda truck be?
Not a Nissan.
Small, preferably PHEV/EREV, and a good value. Whether it’s more luxurious than the Maverick for a reasonable increase in price or cheaper than the Maverick, a good small pickup is going to sell better for Honda than trying to compete for buyers of “real” pickups. Going for another midsize isn’t the move here.
So your idea of a “True Honda Midsize Truck” is…drumroll please…a Nissan? We already get the Frontier, slapping a Honda badge on it to trick people into buying more isn’t exciting news. Then again, you’re probably still right that it’s the best outcome of these tariffs we’re likely to get. At least it isn’t actively harming people.
they could do it right though. the frontier is not really too bad of a little truck, swap the drive train to saw Honda Based parts and tech up the interior and I think Honda might have something there.
I could see Honda using the big Titan underpinning to make a bigger more competitive Ridgeline Alpha or something as well.
Exciting? No. But it seems to be working for the Prologue as that’s outselling whatever model its called for GM
The Maverick proves there is a large market for a pickup that is not a “real” truck as long as, unlike the Honda and Hyundai options, it does not have a “real” truck price. Interestingly, the Ridgeline and Frontier are almost identical in a number of measurements, including length and wheelbase, but the “real” truck (worth something for towing and durability) Frontier is almost $10K cheaper.
Yet the Maverick gets more expensive every year. The stripper model with steelies and no options is the only way to keep it under 30k now.
you’re proving his point. Most consumers are not going on price alone. The Maverick is successful because it offers a good compromise between utility, comfort, price and Fuel Economy.
It was successful up front because they advertised a 20K price point for a 4door family vehicle that supposedly got 42MPG. Yet nobody except fleets could actually get one like that. Strangely the marketing made it seem like these things were gold and sold out, and then when they raised the prices to more correct levels they used that fake demand to excuse the price hikes. Seems to have worked for now.
“:In the U.S., Honda only offers compact pickup trucks.”
No… the Ridgeline is not a compact pickup. It’s mid-size.
“What should a Honda truck be?”
The Honda Ridgeline?
Note that the Ridgeline is built in Alabama. So I don’t see why Honda needs Nissan’s pickup truck.. unless the deal was for the full sized Titan. But the Titan has been discontinued. A Honda-badged Frontier would have too much overlap with the Ridgeline SINCE THEY’RE ABOUT THE SAME SIZE when you compare the short-bed versions.
But you know who could use a variant of the
HardbodyFrontier pickup truck in the USA?Mazda.
You know who else?
VW.
BUT… if Honda does end up with their own version of the Frontier, I want them to call it the Honda Hardbody. And they should only have the long-bed version as the short-bed version would have way too much overlap with the Ridgeline.
Maybe they could just bring the barebones NP300 RCLB and DCSB truck they build in Mexico with 4cyl gas and Diesel power
They could in theory. But for US sales, they won’t because Donald Jackass Trump and his Jackass Tariffs.
Mazda has the BT50 and VW has the Amarok elsewhere in the world, they most likely wouldn’t need or want help from nissan.
LOL the Ridgeline is NOT a compact pickup. That thing is fucking HUGE LOL
There don’t seem to be any true Maverick competitors so … Honda should do that.
Makes total sense. If Musk would have done a reasonably styled e-truck in that size instead of the goofy CyberTruk it would have done quite well.
the Hyundai Sante Cruz is the closest, yet strangely the low cost manufacturer that is also well known for BEV options at low prices still has not waded into the sub 30 K Hybrid option to pull in sales. Nissan should have really started this competition with a boxier truck like Leaf with a range extender motor.
I really hope Nissan can survive. The Frontier is one of very few trucks on my list for the my next purchase (2-3 years from now) because it is the only midsize where you can get a backseat AND a 6 foot bed. I have no interest at all in a 5 foot bed, would rather get a van I think.
Can’t you get a Tacoma with 4 doors and a 6′ bed? Isn’t the 6′ bed just like $500 more than the 5′ bed? https://www.toyota.com/configurator/build/step/model/year/2025/series/tacoma/?bap_guid=2d160244-cd59-4f18-935a-5c1bf704895d
Or is Tacoma not mid-sized now?
Holy smokes. I could have SWORN I saw that the 6-foot Tacoma could only be had with the Xtra cab and not the actual four door with rear seats. Your comment made me double check that. Guess it’s back on my radar now..
Given that you can’t order a Toyota to spec, you could be competing for one of the very few in a configuration you like. But there should be some out there.
“The Frontier is one of very few trucks on my list for the my next purchase (2-3 years from now) because it is the only midsize where you can get a backseat, V6 power, AND a 6 foot bed”.
There, fixed it for you
Well true I do still prefer natural aspiration. Though for some reason I’m not as bothered by a turbo-four on a midsize like I am a fullsize truck
Yes. I have one. There were multiple trim options in stock at the dealer. They’re not hard to find at all.
Yeah they were the ones I was interested in as well so I’ve been kinda staying up to date on what’s available. Glad they’re not unicorns.
Do you know about the manual Tacoma’s? Not sure what all you were looking at but did you see any in the four-door 6-foot configuration?
November for the Tesla meeting? That’ll be enough time to see if Musk spends time on a nascent political party or helming Tesla. With the calls by even some Tesla bulls that Musk has been too absent, I’m hoping he’s tiring out his welcome. A lot depends on how Q2 and Q3 sales go plus internal Q4 numbers. If there’s a rebound he stays more than likely.
Musk should be “promoted” to non-executive chairman and someone else brought in as CEO. At this point, one of the Carloses (Tavares or Ghosn) would probably be an improvement
Practically anyone not Elon would be an improvement. I’d gladly do the job for a mere $10 million a year. That’s cheap for an auto CEO!
Out of curiosity and a legit question, how well do we think Tesla would do without Musk? As somebody who has 0 interest in any of his vehicles, I feel like so much of the value of Tesla is based on Musk and his “promises.”
As in, who is next in command? Who on this board would take over if he was ousted? I don’t feel like I have heard/remembered any other names of anybody in the company if he were to just not be there tomorrow.
A lot of the stock price would evaporate IMO. But the fundamentals of the company would be stronger since people who don’t support Musk would probably consider Tesla products again. The products are brilliant. But the best products don’t do any good if nobody buys them. That said, people, especially in Texas at the moment, are finding out just what Musk did to the US government is terrible.
Practically anyone could do better than an absent, drugged out CEO.
Omg just popping in to say THANK YOU for introducing me to this song 🙂
All of y’all are dead wrong.
All I want is a Honda Africa Twin with a small truck bed.
Make it happen.
You could even call it a Pontiac!
BRING BACK PONTIAC YOU COWARDS
beep beep honk honk vroom vroom yes
Perhaps multiple trucks for different purposes would be cool? Or one-up everybody and do a body-on-frame boi the size of the new Ranger. Aging suburban dads everywhere would rejoice. A cool lil’ truck that’s rugged and reliable would be gold.
Also, hell yeah, ICP.