(April 14): Nissan Motor Co has unveiled a makeover of its ageing line-up, setting ambitious targets to raise sales in the US and China a year after chief executive officer Ivan Espinosa took charge of the ailing carmaker.
The Japanese manufacturer plans to reduce the number of models from 56 to 45 and streamline 80% of its volume into three main “families” of vehicles built on shared platforms and which are geared for its biggest regions, it said in a statement on Tuesday.
The long-awaited strategy marks Espinosa’s latest effort to reshape Nissan after a realignment of its troubled, two-decade long partnership with Renault SA and, more recently, a failed merger with Honda Motor Co. The company is suffering from steep losses and mountainous debt while its outdated offerings have failed to keep up with the industry’s shift to electric vehicles and hybrids in Japan, China and the US.
“This is how our portfolio strategy comes to life, anchored in profitability and built around a leaner, stronger line-up,” Espinosa told reporters at Nissan’s headquarters in Yokohama, Japan.
As part of its reboot, Nissan aims to sell more than one million cars each in the US and Chinese markets by 2030, reaching a level it hasn’t hit since its 2019 fiscal year in the US and the 2021 fiscal year in China.
It hopes to do so with fresher products, including V6-engine hybrid versions of its best-selling Rogue compact crossover and a resuscitated Xterra sport utility vehicle for the US. That renewed push into hybrids in the US comes after the company abandoned them in 2019, forcing it to sit out a recent boom in sales of gas-electrics by rivals Honda and Toyota Motor Corp.
See also: Ford CEO says Chinese carmakers should be kept out of US
Unlike hybrids from those two peers, Nissan is using a technology it debuted a decade ago in its home market that uses a gas engine to charge batteries which propel the vehicle.
Nissan said it will prioritise fast vehicle development and cost efficiencies in China, strengthening its all-electric vehicle offerings and using the country as an export hub to markets such as Latin America and Southeast Asia. It plans to target those two regions with shipments of its Chinese-made N7 mid-sized sedan and Frontier Pro pickup.
In Japan, Nissan said it will push deeper into smaller vehicles with a new compact car it expects to sell 550,000 units of annually by the fiscal year ending in 2031.
See also: US trade chief thinks tech restrictions will block Chinese autos
The carmaker also reiterated plans to upgrade its advanced driver-assistance systems, starting with an enhanced version of its ProPilot technology in its latest Elgrand minivan due out this summer in Japan. That will deploy “end-to-end autonomous” technology by early 2028, which aligns with an announcement last year to upgrade cruise control and lane-keeping functions.
Uploaded by Tham Yek Lee
