Nissan and Honda have said they will work together on developing electric vehicles and auto intelligence technology to pool resources in a sector where Japanese carmakers have fallen behind.

The chief executives of Nissan and Honda appeared together at a news conference in Tokyo to announce that Japan’s second and third biggest carmakers would look into possibilities, scope and areas that show potential for collaboration in electrification and the use of intelligence cars.

Their agreement is non-binding, and discussions will now start, they said.

The world’s carmakers are moving towards what promises to be a growth business centred on electric vehicles, focusing on batteries and motors, instead of gas engines, as concerns grow about emissions and climate change.

The Japanese have fallen behind some of the world’s powerful rivals such as Tesla partly because they have historically been so successful with combustion engine products.