Nissan Americas head embraces threat from Chinese car brands

Nissan Motor Co. welcomes Chinese automakers’ push into Latin America and other countries, according to the company’s top executive in the region, who says the competition will only make the industry stronger and benefit the car-buying public. “Competition is not a bad thing,” Christian Meunier, Nissan’s chairman for the Americas, told reporters in Sao Paulo. “Our duty is to provide a product and a service and an experience for the customer which is better than the Chinese. And if we do that, we’ll be fine.” Chinese electric vehicle makers are pushing deeper across Latin America, including Brazil and Mexico, using aggressive pricing to offload surplus production in China. The sudden influx has led the governments in those two countries, which are the largest car markets in the region, to hike tariffs to blunt the impact from the surge in Chinese imports. That’s prompted some of China’s carmakers to start production of vehicles locally to build on their market share gains, but even those efforts have faced hurdles due to pressure from more established rivals. While Meunier said Chinese brands’ incursion abroad has been supported by subsidies from the Chinese government, they often lack dealer and servicing networks critical for long-term gains and staying power. “Some are successful, some not so successful,” he said. “I don’t know how many of them will survive.” Nissan has no plans to form partnerships with Chinese companies in the region, unlike Renault SA’s tie-up with China’s Zhejiang Geely Holding Group Co. in Brazil and Stellantis NV’s Brazilian production deal with Zhejiang Leapmotor Technologies Ltd. “No, we don’t have any intention here,” he said. The Japanese carmaker’s factory in Brazil, which received 2.8 billion reais ($575 million) in investments in 2023, currently manufactures engines as well as its Kait compact crossover and Kicks subcompact models.

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Nissan Americas head embraces threat from Chinese car brands