The two companies signed a memorandum of understanding this morning, with a smaller Nissan alliance member Mitsubishi Motors also agreeing to join the talks.

As the auto industry turns away from fossil fuels, Japanese automakers have been lagging behind their prominent rivals when it comes to electric vehicles.

The deal is aimed at trying to cut costs and make up for lost time. the world's third largest automaker by sales, with a smaller Nissan alliance member Mitsubishi The first thing that you look at when you want to envision an alliance or a partnership is a complementarity between the two partners.

When I look at the complementarity between Honda and Nissan, and I see none, there is no complementarity.

The two companies are two Japanese companies.

They are strong in the same fields.

They are weak in the same fields.

Both of them have very developed technologies.

From an industrial point of view, there is duplication everywhere.

So industrially, for me, it doesn't make sense.

Now, when I look at the situation of Nissan today, and I see the tens of billions of dollars wasted, the plants which are going to be closed, the community was going to be supple, the employments were going to be destroyed.

Now, we have victims here.

We have victims of mismanagement, of lack of vision, and of an obsession for control.

Today, Nissan has been marginalized by its own weaknesses and by its own mistakes.

Honda is much stronger than Nissan, but still is not a developing force into this industry.

I think a potential alliance or partnership between the two companies is going to be another company fighting for survival and relevance into this industry.

But without any doubt, they're going to have a tough time against the Chinese, against companies like Tesla, and also against Toyota, which is obviously facing these challenges in a way which is much more convincing.