Nissan to beg Tesla for help, offering up its US factories in return

Nissan's merger plans with Honda recently fell through, but the Japanese company still has a lot of issues and so it needs outside help (read: a sizeable investment if not an outright purchase).

It now seems like the Japanese government would really like to keep Nissan out of the hands of Chinese companies, and so it's assembled a crack team of people that should convince Tesla to invest in Nissan.

The group reportedly includes Hiro Mizuno, a former Tesla board member, as well as Yoshihide Suga, a former Prime Minister of Japan. The star-studded cast will try to convince Tesla that it needs Nissan's factories in the US, which would help it boost domestic US manufacturing in the wake of the Trump Administration's tariff threats.

That sounds well and good in theory, but Tesla's existing factories are already running under capacity, so what need the brand would have for Nissan's remains to be seen.

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