Nissan Motor Co is in advanced talks to take a roughly one-third stake in Mitsubishi Motors Corp with a $1.8 billion investment, as Mitsubishi struggles with a fuel-economy data scandal, two sources said.

If the ¥200 billion deal goes through, Nissan, Japan's second-largest automaker by sales, would become the largest single shareholder of the much smaller Mitsubishi Motors, which admitted last month that it had supplied Nissan with mini-vehicles with overstated mileage levels.

The deal would give Nissan a bigger stake in MMC than its 15 percent holding in alliance partner Renault. The French automaker holds a 43.4 percent stake in Nissan.