By Kosaku Narioka

Nissan replaced its chief executive weeks after it scrapped a plan to merge with rival Honda, promoting its chief planning officer in its latest bid for a turnaround.

Ivan Espinosa, 46, who has worked at Nissan since joining the carmaker's Mexico unit in 2003, will replace Chief Executive Makoto Uchida on April 1, the company said Tuesday.

In February, Nissan and Honda canceled their planned merger less than two months after announcing it. Merger talks broke down after Honda -- whose market value is nearly five times that of Nissan's -- sought to make Nissan a subsidiary.

Uchida, 58, became CEO in 2019 and remade its alliance with France's Renault in 2023 to reduce Renault's stake and restore Nissan's autonomy. In spurning the Honda deal, Uchida said he couldn't accept being a unit of Honda because he didn't know whether Nissan would lose its autonomy again.

Nissan has struggled in the U.S. and China, its two biggest markets, and has projected a loss for the fiscal year ending in March. Analysts laid part of the blame at Uchida's feet because Nissan didn't have a gas-electric hybrid to sell in the U.S. when more American car buyers were looking for hybrids.

In China, Nissan is among the many global carmakers that have lost ground amid a cutthroat price war and consumers' shift away from conventional gas-powered vehicles. Its global sales in January fell 5.9% from a year earlier.

In November, Uchida announced a turnaround plan that included cutting 9,000 jobs and reducing global production capacity by a fifth.

Espinosa said Tuesday the company was reinforcing its lineup in the U.S. and had high hopes for a new electric sedan in China, jointly developed with partner Dongfeng Motor.

"I sincerely believe that Nissan has so much more potential than what we are seeing today," he said.

A Nissan spokeswoman declined to state Espinosa's nationality.

Nissan turned to a non-Japanese executive for a turnaround in 1999, when it tapped Carlos Ghosn for a top role. Ghosn, who was born in Brazil and grew up in Lebanon, went on to serve as chief executive and chairman before he was arrested in Japan in 2018 over financial charges that he denied. The company's stock price and global sales sank after the arrest and haven't recovered since.

Ghosn escaped from Japan in December 2019 on a private jet before his trial began and now lives in Lebanon.

Write to Kosaku Narioka at kosaku.narioka@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

March 11, 2025 08:22 ET (12:22 GMT)

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