Honda and Nissan merge to combat declining fortunes

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Honda, Nissan, and Mitsubishi are exploring a merger to counter declining sales and the rising electrification costs. This move follows years of declining profitability for Nissan, culminating in a 73% drop in first-quarter 2024 net profit. Nissan's market share has also eroded, particularly in the US electric vehicle market, holding a mere 2.4% share. To address this, Nissan recently announced a restructuring plan involving job cuts and capacity reductions.

A combined entity—led by Honda—could generate significant revenue and operating profit. However, past auto industry mergers have often been unsuccessful due to integration challenges and cultural clashes. This merger aims to avoid these pitfalls by prioritizing a slower integration process and maintaining a holding company structure.

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Tesla gets an official Apple Watch app

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It's been a long time coming, but there's finally an official Tesla app on the Apple Watch. This app will let you use your smartwatch as a key to unlock your Tesla's doors. It can also access controls for your trunk, climate system, and more from your wrist. Now, if you're waiting for CarPlay support on your Tesla, that might not be coming anytime soon.

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Rebranded Jaguar debuts concept EV

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Jaguar conducted a complete brand overhaul to transform from a more traditional car maker to one that aims to offer all-electric luxury vehicles. After it launched its logo redesign last month, we got a quick look at its first concept car under the brand's new "Copy nothing" tagline.

Jaguar debuted the Type 00 concept at Miami Art Week. The automaker describes it as "an example of Jaguar at its best. A fearless statement. An object of desire," and it's designed to encapsulate a new "creative philosophy [of] Exuberant Modernism."

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Google rolls out Waze incident alerts on Maps

Image: Google via Tech Radar

What separates Google Maps from Waze is the community-driven traffic incident alerts you get on the latter. But that feature looks like it's coming to Maps. Users are now seeing Waze traffic alerts in the app with the words "From Waze drivers" in the pop-ups. Google announced this integration back in July, but it's been getting a broader release in time for the holiday driving season.

As Tech Radar pointed out, Google Maps has been asking drivers to offer traffic incident updates for a while now. But the alerts coming from Waze are a new addition. These notifications are for incidents like lane closures, nearby construction, and the like. It does hint at Google possibly integrating Waze into Maps, which they have said in the past that they won't do. But we can't say for sure that Google will keep its word. We all know what happened to Fitbit after all.

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