Aug. 25, 2025 | Nissan’s Christian Meunier; possible bombshell in EU trade framework

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Welcome to Daily Drive for Monday, August 25, 2025.

I'm Kallen Walker in Las Vegas.

Today on the show, a possible bombshell lies in the US-EU trade framework.

NHTSA probes more than 1.4 million Honda vehicles over engine failures, and two auto-adjacent CEOs

top the list of highest-paid execs in 2024.

Plus, I talk with Nissan America's chairperson Christian Mounier about how the struggling

Japanese automaker hopes to win back customers with a fresh lineup and more powertrain options.

We're going to put the company back on track.

I think we're on a good pass.

Let's run through all the news you need to know to keep up in the auto industry.

One sentence in the United States European Union's framework for a trade agreement could

usher in some of the biggest changes the auto industry has seen this century.

It reads, quote, with respect to automobiles, the United States and the European Union

intend to accept and provide mutual recognition to each other's standards.

The implication of the language in Article VIII of the statement has divided industry experts.

If enacted, some believe the new rules would allow imported vehicles from each other's

regions to be sold on both sides of the Atlantic without meeting the same safety and

emission standards.

Others said automakers will still be required to tailor vehicles to each market, but the

potential changes could push the regions to accept the other's safety, emissions,

and fuel economy test results.

We'll have more on this story in a minute with our own Richard Truitt.

NHTSA is opening a probe into more than 1.4 million Honda and Acura vehicles sold in

the U.S.

It's investigating concerns that connecting rod-bearing failures in engines could lead

to complete engine failure.

In a letter dated August 20, the regulator said it received 414 reports of the issue

in various Honda and Acura vehicles, 3.5-liter V6 engines.

And the CEOs of NVIDIA and Uber Technologies were paid the most among executives at U.S.-based

automotive and industry-adjacent companies last year.

That's according to this year's Automotive News Equilar CEO Compensation Survey.

NVIDIA's Jensen Huang repeated his spot at the top of the list for the third consecutive

year and the fourth time in the past five years.

Huang's 2024 pay and benefits were worth more than $197 million, according to Equilar.

Uber CEO Dara Cosversahi received nearly $115 million.

And those are today's headlines.

You can find more details on all those stories at AutoNews.com.

Now joining me to talk more about this possible bombshell in the U.S.-EU trade framework

is our own Richard Truitt, who wrote about it in this week's edition of Automotive

News.

Richard, welcome back to Daily Drive.

Hey, Cal.

How are you?

Doing all right.

How about yourself?

It's great to be here.

And I got to say, exciting to be here, because we're the first to break what I think is

a pretty darn big story.

All right.

Let's get to it.

So, Richard, why is this such a big deal?

Because it has the potential to save the Detroit 3 automakers, tens of millions, hundreds

of millions of dollars, should they decide to go back to Europe with some cars that

Europeans really want to buy.

And what I mean by that, Cal, is that over in Europe, there is a completely different

set of safety standards that cars sold there have to meet than there are here.

And so if Ford or GM or somebody wanted to make a car or an SUV for sale in Europe,

they would essentially have to design two different versions of it.

One for U.S. safety and emissions and another version for European safety and emissions.

Now we learned Friday that the Trump administration and the EU, the European Union, have agreed

to recognize and accept each other's safety and emissions standards.

So that could potentially be massive.

Well, Richard, what happens next and can we expect clarity on this soon?

That's a great question, Cal.

We don't know and know.

We don't know what happens next.

There was one sentence in the framework of the trade agreement that talked about accepting

and recognizing each other's standards.

There was nothing in there about when it would be implemented or what the nuts and bolts

of it are.

And the language, though not really vague or confusing, didn't offer a lot of detail.

So we're going to have to sit back and wait and see what form this takes, because

we don't know.

The flip side of this is now the European vehicles that come over here are going

to be a little bit less complex for their automakers over there.

Instead of having to design vehicles that have two sets of emission standards, now they

can just design it one time.

So it'll save the Europeans a little bit of money, too.

But if you look at how the number of cars that come from Europe into the US and

the number of vehicles that go from the US to Europe, it's tilted way, way in

the favor of the United States.

All right, Richard.

Well, you'll be our guy.

We'll have to reach out to you to follow up.

Thank you so much for joining me.

Coming up, Nissan America's chairperson, Christian Mounier, joins me to talk about

the automakers, product blitz, and more.

That's next on Daily Drive.

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Welcome back to Daily Drive.

I'm Kellan Walker.

Last week, Nissan executives were here in Las Vegas to talk with dealers

about the automakers plans for the future.

This dealer meeting was especially critical for the Japanese automaker,

which reported its largest loss in about a quarter century in the fiscal year

that ended in March.

With that backdrop, Nissan told retailers it plans to deliver 20 new

and updated models to the U.S. and Canada by spring 2027.

Then in 2028, it will reincarnate the XTERRA SUV.

After the meetings, I spoke with Nissan America's chairperson,

Christian Mounier, about the plans.

Christian Mounier, welcome to Daily Drive.

Thank you.

Thank you. It's a pleasure to be here with you.

Yes, and it's great to finally meet you.

Yes, it is.

So a lot of excitement for Nissan and Infinity,

20 new and updated models for Canada and the U.S. by spring 2027.

The U.S. market is critical to Nissan's business recovery.

What's your strategy to boost sales and profitability in this key market?

Yeah, the U.S. market is definitely the most important market for Nissan globally, right?

So there's a lot of focus, a lot of investment coming our way.

There's a lot of things that we're putting in place to get the business back on track.

And I think yesterday you had the opportunity to,

some of your colleagues had the opportunity to listen to our communication

to the dealers that we had here in Vegas today or yesterday.

What is critical for us to get focus again, right?

Focus on selling cars on dealer profitability and taking care of the customers.

These are the three dealers that have been driving all the decisions

and all the changes within the organization the last few months.

And Nissan struggles with consumer consideration.

What steps are you taking to enhance the brand image and drive showroom traffic?

Is this product blitz the key to enhancing that image and to bring in that traffic?

I think new products are always an opportunity for you to obviously reset certain things

from the marketing standpoint, the communication standpoint.

But also, I think there are a lot of things that people don't know about Nissan.

We've been the best in JD Power IQS for many, many years against many, many brands.

So Toyota and Honda, who knows that Nissan has been ahead on IQS since I think 2017?

And recently, we've been awarded number one position in JD Power IQS in the mainstream brand.

So the quality of our product is top notch.

I think our product are very, very good.

We have some deficiencies like we're lacking hybrid, for example, on the C segment.

And we know that's important to have it.

But the availability of the new Rogue with hybrid next year is going to be a game changer.

And how are tariffs affecting your U.S. operations, particularly with Mexico supplying a third of your volume?

And what measures are you taking to offset these costs?

So the tariff, obviously, we can see it two ways, right?

It's obviously a challenge for everybody because we have product coming from Mexico and from Japan.

But the vast majority of our cars are made in the U.S.

And the good news is we have extra capacity in Tennessee and Mississippi.

So we see it as an opportunity as well to reset certain things, to max out the localization of our product,

to increase the mix of locally produced product.

Rogue, Pathfinder, from here are really the core models that we focus a lot on right now.

And we have some good success with it.

Rogue in the last few months, 60% up, Pathfinder 100% up.

That's great.

So we're doing well.

And how do you see EV adoption evolving in the U.S. market?

So it's going to be a challenge, especially after the end of September,

when the federal incentive is going to go away, the $7,500 that was available.

It's going to make it very, very challenging.

We know that the cost of EV is significantly higher than regular ICE power trains.

And without incentive, government incentive or local incentive,

it makes it very difficult from an affordability standpoint, right?

For the manufacturer to make it affordable for people to pay for this

and for people to really afford those.

It's pretty interesting to see the MSRP of these EVs being much higher than ICE.

But when you look at the reality, the transaction price, they are lower than ICE right now.

Right.

And now let's get to the cars.

So I see you have extreme focus on product with new models launching soon.

Which ones excite you the most?

It's a tough question.

I love Z.

So Z is obviously very, very exciting.

We have a lot of special edition in the pipeline.

We have a Nismo manual transmission coming.

We have a lot of exciting things happening on the Z side.

What is really interesting for me is the new rogue that is coming with the hybrid e-power system.

Because that's going to really be a game changer for us.

It's going to give us the opportunity to really compete fully in the segment.

We know the demand for hybrid is increasing a lot.

And today we don't have that option.

So I think it's going to give us the ability to grow again and to satisfy all our customers.

What else?

The new Sentra that we shared yesterday is going to be also a very, very attractive product.

We call it the entry car, but this car is super, super sexy, drives super well.

I think it's going to be very interesting because it's going to attract new customers

to the brand.

And we know that having a very strong entry car is critical for the success of the entire

lineup because these customers end up buying bigger and bigger over time.

Yeah.

And yesterday you said, speaking of the rogue, that the rogue is our center of gravity,

our bread and butter, and the redesigned rogue that arrives in 2027.

How much is riding on the success of the rogue?

I think rogue is really the cornerstone.

It's what makes the brand because that's the car that you see the most.

That's the one that's the largest segment in the United States.

And that's what makes dealer profitable, right?

Because that's the mass, right?

That's the core of the core.

So that's why it's very important to be successful in that segment.

I think we have a very good product today.

The new product is going to be even better and we're going to have all these

powertrain options that's going to make it even more attractive.

I think it's very important because it's really what people see the most on the street.

So that defines pretty much the brand that you are.

And one thing I thought is great is the reboot of the XTERRA.

Why does the reboot of the XTERRA make sense for Nissan?

It's super exciting.

It is super exciting, I think, when the XTERRA launched,

the first generation XTERRA launched, it was a game changer.

I remember I was not working for Nissan at the time,

but I could see that from the outside.

I could see the excitement of younger people buying XTERRA.

We had a line of customers waiting for it.

And I think it's been a very, very successful product.

I think it's really also very close to what the true DNA of Nissan is.

Quality, Japanese quality, reliability, durability, but

at the same time, very exciting, that's what Nissan stands for.

Quality, but it's also fun and it's affordable, right?

Absolutely.

And I think what we're doing with these new product that is coming in a few years

is going to be the same.

It's really about capitalizing on what the DNA of Nissan is, bringing it back,

get customers excited, and dealer are going to be super successful.

They're going to make money with it and they're going to have fun with it.

So I think we're missing that component of excitement today.

And I think XTERRA is going to be one big piece of it, bringing the DNA of Nissan back.

I think it's going to help us thrive again.

And I think you're on the right track.

What does success look like in the next 24 months for Nissan?

Success will be obviously profitability, right?

We need to get the company profitable again.

I think 2025 is really part of the re-Nissan and recovery of Nissan.

So there are a lot of efforts on the cost side, on the fixed cost side,

on the variable cost side, and we need to start growing again.

Because I think in the last few years, Nissan had pretty much lost the appetite of growth.

Sales was not a priority.

And in my mind, selling is a priority because it all starts with selling a car.

Right.

And so we're going to start growing again.

We're going to reduce some of the fixed costs and the structural costs that we have,

which is still not at the right size versus the size of the company today.

And we're going to put the company back on track.

I think we're on a good path.

We were at 3.8% market share in December 24 in the retail business.

We were at 5.3 a month ago.

We were at 5% in July.

In August, hopefully we're going to keep going.

The trend is very, very positive.

We're doing a lot less daily rental than we used to.

So we took from 20% down to 12%, which is a lot more reasonable.

So the total share of Nissan visually will not show a lot of growth.

But when you focus on the retail business,

which is through the dealer network,

is we're going to continuously grow in a sustainable manner.

We're not going to go crazy.

We're going to do it gradually for the dealers to become more and more profitable.

Because we know that healthy dealers take care of the customers.

And obviously, their profit and our profit go hand in hand.

We need to be profitable for the dealers to be profitable and vice versa.

Right.

Christian Mounier, chairman of Nissan Americas.

Thank you so much for joining me.

Thank you. It's been a pleasure.

Can the US hold that fortress and hold off the Chinese?

That's a question.

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Aug. 25, 2025 | Nissan’s Christian Meunier; possible bombshell in EU trade framework

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