The History of Nissan

Short Answer

Nissan was founded on 26 December 1933, when Yoshisuke Aikawa’s companies set up Jidosha Seizo in Yokohama, and it took the name Nissan Motor in 1934. Its roots go back to the DAT car of 1914 and the Datsun name of 1932. Nissan merged with Prince Motors in 1966, formed an alliance with Renault in 1999 after years of losses, and since 2025 has been led by Ivan Espinosa under the Re:Nissan recovery plan.

Where do Nissan’s roots begin?

Nissan traces its family tree to the Kwaishinsha Motor Car Works, founded by Masujiro Hashimoto in Tokyo in 1911, which Nissan calls the forerunner of Japan’s own car industry. In 1914 Kwaishinsha completed the DAT car, a small car with a twin-cylinder 10 ps engine and a top speed of 32 km/h, named after the initials of three investors, Den, Aoyama and Takeuchi. A second line began in Osaka in 1919, when the American engineer William R. Gorham designed a three-wheeled vehicle and Jitsuyo Jidosha was founded to build it. The two came together in 1926 as DAT Jidosha Seizo. In 1930 it built a new small car, the Datson, or ‘son of DAT’, and in 1932 the name became Datsun, because ‘son’ sounds like the Japanese word for loss, while Datsun evokes the rising sun.

Who was Yoshisuke Aikawa?

Yoshisuke Aikawa, Nissan’s founder, was born on 6 November 1880 in Yamaguchi Prefecture and graduated in engineering from Tokyo Imperial University in 1903. He learned malleable cast-iron production at a foundry in the United States and founded Tobata Casting in 1910. In 1928 he became president of Nihon Sangyo, and the Nissan name comes from it: Ni from Nihon, meaning Japan, and San from Sangyo, meaning industry. In 1931 DAT Jidosha Seizo became affiliated with Tobata Casting, which wanted to enter the car business. Aikawa deliberately avoided naming his companies after himself, believing a company belonged to its shareholders and should serve the public good.

When was Nissan founded?

On 26 December 1933 Nihon Sangyo and Tobata Casting established Jidosha Seizo Co., Ltd. in Yokohama, with Aikawa as president and paid-in capital of 10 million yen; Nissan counts this as its founding date. In 1934 the company became Nissan Motor Co., Ltd., the first Datsuns were exported to Asia and to Central and South America, and construction of the Yokohama Plant was completed. In April 1935 the first car made on a fully integrated assembly line left the plant, which Nissan describes as Japan’s first automobile mass-production facility. That car was the Datsun 14, and its importance is a story of its own, told in Otto’s article on the legendary Nissans. Production grew from 202 units in 1933 to 10,227 in 1937.

What happened to Nissan during and after the war?

The war stopped Nissan’s car and truck production completely in December 1943, and in September 1944 the head office moved to Nihonbashi in Tokyo under the name Nissan Heavy Industries. The first post-war car left the line in November 1945, the headquarters returned to Yokohama in January 1946 and the name Nissan Motor Co., Ltd. came back in August 1949. In December 1951 Nissan introduced the Patrol 4W60, a four-wheel drive that would later matter greatly in the Gulf. In December 1952 it signed a technical cooperation agreement with Britain’s Austin Motor Company, which ran until March 1960, and in January 1955 it launched the Datsun 110, its first all-new post-war passenger car.

How did Nissan start selling around the world?

In September 1958 a Datsun 210 won its class in the 16,000 km Mobilgas Trial around Australia, with Yutaka Katayama as team manager, and that June Nissan had begun exporting passenger cars to the United States. Nissan Motor Corporation in U.S.A. followed in September 1960, and Katayama, later known as ‘Mr. K’, went to Los Angeles to build a dealer network from scratch. Cumulative exports passed 1,000,000 cars in November 1969. Overseas factories followed, in the United States from 1980 and in Britain from 1984. In July 1981 Nissan adopted NISSAN as its single brand name for overseas markets, and in November 1989 the Infiniti Q45 appeared.

Why did Nissan merge with Prince Motors?

Prince brought Nissan a strong engineering line of its own. It began in 1947 as Tokyo Electro Automobile, founded by former aircraft engineers, which sold the Tama electric car, and in 1957 its predecessor Fuji Precision Machinery launched the Prince Skyline, with Shinichiro Sakurai among its engineers. Nissan merged with Prince Motors in May 1966 and took over its Murayama Plant; the same month Prince’s R380 won the third Japan Grand Prix. The Skyline stayed in the Nissan range, and in February 1969 the Skyline 2000GT-R arrived, built with know-how from the R380.

Why did Nissan turn to Renault in 1999?

Because it was in serious financial trouble. Through the 1990s Nissan lost money every year from 1992 except 1996, built up more than 20 billion dollars of debt and saw its share of the world market fall from 6.6% in 1991 to 4.9% in 1998. Yoshikazu Hanawa, president from 1996, argued that Nissan had to become truly global and looked for a partner. On 27 March 1999 he and Renault’s Louis Schweitzer signed the alliance agreement in Tokyo, and on 28 May Renault took a 36.8% stake in Nissan. Carlos Ghosn joined Nissan’s board as chief operating officer in June 1999 and announced the Nissan Revival Plan on 18 October 1999. The plan was set to finish a year early, in 2002, when Renault raised its stake to 44.4% and Nissan took 15% of Renault. Hanawa later said the company ‘changed 180 degrees’ under Ghosn.

How did Nissan change between 2000 and 2018?

In 2007 the GT-R became a model in its own right, without the Skyline name, and in August 2009 Nissan opened its new Global Headquarters in Yokohama. The LEAF electric car went on sale in December 2010, and Otto compares electric and hybrid drives in his guide to hybrid, plug-in hybrid and electric cars. Nissan revived the Datsun name in 2013 as a low-cost brand for emerging markets, took a 34% stake in Mitsubishi Motors in October 2016 and celebrated 150 million vehicles built in 2017. In November 2018 Carlos Ghosn was arrested in Japan.

What has happened at Nissan since 2019?

The alliance was rebalanced: under a new agreement that took effect on 8 November 2023, Renault and Nissan each hold 15% of the other, and Renault placed a further 28.4% of Nissan in a French trust that votes the shares neutrally. In December 2024 Nissan and Honda agreed to consider a business integration, but the talks ended in February 2025. A new chief executive, Ivan Espinosa, was appointed in 2025, and on 13 May 2025 Nissan announced Re:Nissan, a recovery plan to cut its vehicle plants from 17 to 10 by fiscal year 2027, reduce the workforce by 20,000 and return the car business to profit by fiscal year 2026. In July 2025 Nissan said it would move production from its Oppama Plant to Nissan Motor Kyushu, and in August 2025 the last R35 GT-R left the line.

How did Nissan become part of life in the Gulf?

Through the Patrol first of all. Nissan says the Patrol’s roots in the Middle East date to the 1950s and that it was one of the first dedicated four-wheel drives in the region. Nissan set up Nissan Middle East in Dubai in July 1994, and its own timeline records that in June 2005 Oman became home to the world’s largest Nissan showroom, before Nissan Gulf began operations in 2008. The Y62 Patrol was launched in Abu Dhabi on 13 February 2010, and the all-new Patrol made its global debut there on 4 September 2024. How the Patrol generations differ is explained in Otto’s guide to the Nissan model lineup. If you are buying a used Nissan, a pre-purchase inspection tells you what you are getting, and Otto explains the difference between a dealership and an independent specialist; at AutoTronix, the Nissan GT-R is supported by PERFORMANCE.

Who runs Nissan today?

Nissan Motor Co., Ltd., founded in 1933, is headquartered in Yokohama and had 120,079 employees across the group on 31 March 2026, when Ivan Espinosa was its President and CEO. Renault remains a partner and shareholder under the 2023 alliance agreement. In fiscal year 2025, which ended on 31 March 2026, Nissan sold 3.15 million vehicles worldwide and returned to a small operating profit of 58.0 billion yen, while still recording a net loss of 533.1 billion yen. These are the figures as of October 2026.

Common Questions

• What does the name Nissan mean? It comes from Nihon Sangyo, the holding company Yoshisuke Aikawa ran from 1928: Ni from Nihon, meaning Japan, and San from Sangyo, meaning industry.
• Why did Datsuns become Nissans? In July 1981 Nissan adopted NISSAN as its single brand name for overseas markets and phased out the Datsun name. It brought Datsun back in 2013 as a low-cost brand for emerging markets, and Datsun production ended in India in April 2022.
• Does Renault own Nissan? Not in the sense of control. Under the agreement in force since 8 November 2023, Renault and Nissan each hold 15% of the other, and the further 28.4% of Nissan that Renault placed in a French trust is voted neutrally.
• Where is Nissan based? In Yokohama, Japan, where the company was founded in 1933. Its headquarters returned there from Tokyo in January 1946, and its current Global Headquarters opened in August 2009.

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