Do we like them?

Do we like Nissan?

Japanese carmaker (Nissan, Infiniti, Datsun heritage) making cars and EVs like the Leaf. Based in Yokohama, Japan.

Our score: 4 out of 10. Not yet. Nissan is cleaning up after a run of governance and supplier-pay failures and is mid-turnaround with big job cuts. We'd wait for proof before backing it.

Nissan is Japan's oldest big carmaker, founded in 1933 and based in Yokohama. It has long been tangled up with Renault, which holds a stake in it. Its modern reputation was shaped by the Carlos Ghosn years, when the company was caught up in a pay-disclosure scandal.

The Ghosn fallout was costly. The US SEC said Nissan's disclosures hid more than $140m of promised pay for Ghosn, and Nissan paid a $15m fine without admitting or denying. In Japan, a Tokyo court fined Nissan 200 million yen, and Nissan chose not to appeal.

Then came the supplier row. Japan's Fair Trade Commission said Nissan cut payments to 36 subcontractors by about 3 billion yen, which broke the law. Nissan says it refunded the money, stopped the rebates and set up a compliance department. That is a fair fix, but it was still squeezing smaller firms.

Ivan Espinosa, a Nissan veteran born in Mexico, became CEO in April 2025 and launched Re:Nissan. It cuts costs by 500bn yen, closes seven factories and eliminates around 20,000 jobs. Nissan reported a $3.3bn net loss for its first restructuring year. Espinosa says it's now ahead of schedule.

Our score is 4. The turnaround may work, and Nissan has owned up and fixed things, but its record on governance, supplier treatment, data security and recalls is patchy. It's also shedding thousands of jobs. We'd back it only once it has a clean run of results.