Portugal Passenger Car Sales : 2026 (Jan-Mar)

Registrations were up 9% both for the month and YTD. Peugeot crept back over the 10% share mark with a 12% market share gain over a complete 2025. It's unusual to have no manufacturer exceeding 10%.

A plethora of Chinese brands have arrived and they are enjoying the largest increases. The question is can that be sustained? In 2026, there seems to be plenty of room for them to expand. 

Data source: ACAP. Photos: Citroën C3 Aircross & MG S9.

Nissan Deliveries/Production 2018-2023

Datsun once rivaled Toyota in size and reputation. It became Nissan from 1981 to 1984. The company lost its way, so in 1999 Renault intervened and took control of Nissan. Carlos Ghosn became the CEO of Nissan and quickly turned it into a profitable company again. Then in 2005, took over leadership of Renault-Nissan as a whole. 

Nissan executives were unhappy with Carlos Ghosn and had him arrested in late 2018. They then took a very different direction, cutting back on volume yet Nissan's financial situation deteriorated drastically. Recent discussions with collaboration with Honda came to nothing. 

Looking at the 2018 to 2020 deliveries and production chart shows the move away from volume for the latter two years. Pulling back on less profitable sales should improve the bottom line but in this case it got worse. 

I also wonder how the deliveries were consistently higher than production over consecutive years. I've tried to find out why and have yet to clarify that. For example btween 2017 and 2021, the disparity was over 1.3 million favouring deliveries.

Things seemed to settle down in 2021, then a slump in 2022 and a slight increase in 2023. Still, a drop of nearly 2.3 million deliveries from 2018 to 2023 was seismic. Yet at the end of it all, losses had mounted. Cutting back on lower margin sales should have helped. Maybe Carlos was on to something. 

Data source: Nissan. Pics: NetCarShow (2019 Maxima & 2022 Qashqai).

Honda Vehicle Production 2020 - 2025 (Quarterly)

The data here is production, not deliveries. I would have preferred the latter but Honda only provides this level of detail for the former. 

Honda set out to be a top motorcycle manufacturer and  became the world's largest in 1959, having started in 1949. Having consolidated that position, it turned to passenger cars in 1963.

I believed that Honda also wanted to become the world's largest car manufacturer too. The company admitted some years back that would never be the case. 

I tried to find confirmation of that but can't, so either my memory is letting me down or AI isn't all it's cracked up to be. If anyone can confirm either way, please leave a comment. 

Anyway, in 2020 4.4 million vehicles were made, 37% of which were made in China. China's contribution to the total has nearly halved in that time to just 20% and that trend will presumably continue. 

From 2020 to 2025, production numbers have fallen by 1 million units, nearly all of that in China (-963,000). With the exception of 2023, it's been a case of reducing volume since. 

Honda forecast for a ¥550b profit for the year to ‌March 2026 but now anticipates losing up to ¥570 billion. It will be Honda's first annual loss since it listing on the stock market in 1957.  

In early 2025, talks exploring a merger / takeover between Honda and Nissan were abandoned. Honda wanted Nissan to be a subsidiary rather than a partner. I wonder if a partnership between them would be mutually beneficial? It now seems highly unlikely in any event. 

Data & photo source: Honda (Accord & Vezel/HR-V).