How Nissan and Honda's $60 billion merger talks collapsed
neuters.de
Intransigence, combined with what Honda management saw as Nissan's slow decision-making, helped torpedo a deal that would have created one of the world's largest automakers.

Summary

  • Nissan’s pride and denial hindered merger talks, sources say
  • Honda pushed Nissan for deeper cuts to jobs, factory capacity, sources say
  • Nissan unwilling to consider factory closures, sources say
  • Honda’s proposal to make Nissan a subsidiary caused tensions, sources say
  • Echo Dot@feddit.ukEnglish
    2·
    7 hours ago

    And Honda was working on hydrogen nearly 30 years ago now

    Unless they have a fusion reactor they’re not telling us about, so that they can electrolyze water hydrogen is never going to be a viable power source. Currently all hydrogen is acquired through fracking, which makes the entire exercise somewhat pointless.

    • sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
      2·
      6 hours ago

      I think hydrogen has a future, but more for long haul trucking than personal cars. The general idea is to generate a ton of solar power during the day and use the excess to produce hydrogen, and then use the hydrogen to fuel heavy equipment, trucks, and cover for low solar production days.

      This solves many of the issues with hydrogen:

      • no need to transport hydrogen, just use it locally
      • wasting energy for production is fine because it would be wasted anyway
      • only used in heavy equipment, so no need to sell the public on it
      • Echo Dot@feddit.ukEnglish
        1·
        5 hours ago

        That way though you would have to haul around the electrolyzing equipment with you which seems redundant and it’s pretty heavy. I’m not sure that would necessarily work.

        Also in that scenario you would have to keep the water on board so that you could electrolyze it again. That adds even more weight. A molecule of water weighs 18 times more than a single hydrogen atom so every single time you run this process your vehicle suddenly gets massively heavier.

        • sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
          1·
          1 hour ago

          I think you misunderstood me. I’m saying good trucks would use the fuel, not generate it. They’d stop at warehouses and hubs and whatnot to refuel using “waste” energy from the warehouse or hub.

          The whole point is that trucks largely take routine routes, so it’s fine if availability is limited because they can plan trips around refueling points. Also, they’re massive, so there are plenty of options for storing the hydrogen since space isn’t really an issue.

      • Echo Dot@feddit.ukEnglish
        1·
        5 hours ago

        Because otherwise you’re spending more energy converting water into a hydrogen then you get back from turning hydrogen into water.

        You still do with Fusion power but at that point you have so much energy it doesn’t matter how inefficient it is. Seriously even using nuclear power it doesn’t work out as economically viable. It’s really a wasteful and inefficient process.