本田与三菱达成协议：本田2028年起在东南亚渠道销售三菱泰国产Triton贴牌皮卡

TOKYO -- Honda Motor and Mitsubishi Motors said Thursday they had agreed to have Honda begin selling Mitsubishi-made pickup trucks in 2028, part of a nascent alliance of Japanese automakers aligning to take on Toyota Motor's camp.
Mitsubishi will produce Honda-badged versions of its Triton pickup truck in Thailand. The vehicles will be sold at Honda dealerships, mainly in Southeast Asia. The move will mark the first time in about 30 years that Honda has had vehicles supplied by another automaker, excluding jointly developed models.
The Triton features a passenger cabin mounted on a ladder-frame chassis, making it well-suited for off-road travel. Honda also makes a pickup truck, but has not offered a frame-based model.
Honda considers North America, India and Japan to be strategic markets. As competition with Chinese automakers heats up in Southeast Asia, Honda aims to curb vehicle development costs by teaming up with Mitsubishi.
For Mitsubishi Motors, producing vehicles for Honda will help raise the utilization rate at its Thai plants.
Mitsubishi Motors' production capacity in Thailand stood at 386,000 vehicles a year in fiscal 2025, but it made only 170,000 in calendar 2025. The automaker plans to suspend operations at one of its three vehicle assembly plants in Thailand in mid-fiscal 2027, but it will still have spare production capacity.
Global sales of the Triton totaled 130,000 vehicles in fiscal 2025, making it Mitsubishi's bestselling model. The automaker also makes the Navara for Nissan based on the Triton and exports it to markets including Australia.
Talks on cooperation among Honda, Nissan and Mitsubishi were announced in 2024 but had remained stalled for some time. Discussions have made progress this year, and in August Honda and Nissan agreed to jointly develop core technology for software-defined vehicles. Mitsubishi Motors may also join the initiative.
The three-company tie-up will effectively consolidate Japan's auto industry into two camps: the Toyota group and the Honda-Nissan group.
Toyota, Japan's largest automaker, moved earlier to build partnerships with other domestic manufacturers. In passenger vehicles, it has reciprocal vehicle-supply arrangements with Daihatsu Motor, Suzuki Motor, Subaru and Mazda Motor. The five companies together have annual sales of roughly 17 million vehicles.
The Honda-Nissan camp, with combined sales of about 7.4 million vehicles among the three companies, trails the Toyota group in scale. The three companies in the smaller group are exploring deeper cooperation, including joint development in vehicle intelligence and electrification.