Makoto Uchida

Makoto Uchida leads Nissan Motor as President and CEO, navigating one of Japan's most storied automakers through one of the most turbulent periods in automotive history. Nissan was thrown into crisis by the arrest and escape of former CEO Carlos Ghosn in 2018-2019, which exposed governance failures and strategic drift. Uchida has been tasked with rebuilding the company's competitiveness, profitability, and culture. The Nissan-Renault-Mitsubishi alliance — once the world's largest automotive alliance by combined sales — has been fundamentally restructured. Renault reduced its stake in Nissan from 43% to 15%, and the three companies now collaborate on a more equal, project-by-project basis rather than the top-down structure imposed by Ghosn. This restructuring gives Nissan more strategic independence but also less guaranteed access to shared technology investment. Nissan was an early EV pioneer (the original Leaf was the world's first mass-market electric car) but has lost its EV leadership position to Tesla, BYD, and Hyundai. The Ariya crossover EV represents Nissan's attempt to reclaim EV credibility. Key stock drivers include global vehicle sales volumes, market share trends in key markets (U.S., Japan, China), EV model launches and reception, alliance restructuring execution, profitability improvement, competitive dynamics in an increasingly crowded EV market, and the overall health of global automotive demand.