Massive Changes Coming for Nissan/Infiniti

Hey everyone, it is Mike from AutoGuide and today we are going to talk Nissan and Infiniti

It's no secret that the brand's been struggling a bit lately from stale products to financial

woes to changes in upper management and failed mergers. Well today they came out and said that they have a new strategy that's going to involve

lot of new products released over the next let's say three to four years so let's take a look at

what is ahead for nissan and infinity the brand has said there will be 10 new models for us and

canadian customers between financial year 2025 and financial year 2027 so basically that means from

now until pretty much three years from now as a lot of companies have been saying lately uh

Basically Nissan is not going all in on EVs. They said to meet rising demand for diverse powertrains, which we can all translate to what we know

and that EVs aren't as popular as people were hoping they would be by now

The new models and new technology that Nissan has will include EVs

but also plug-in hybrids and what they describe as advanced internal combustion engines

So let's take a look at what Nissan's going to do first. So probably the biggest news has to do with the brand's Rogue compact, midsize, whatever you want to call it, SUV, you know, the very popular class

So as we already know, next year or this year, next year, model year, this year, you know what I'm saying

There's going to be a Rogue plug-in hybrid. They announced that already. Well, it's only going to last for one year because next year we will finally get the all new fourth generation Rogue

and it will have a plug-in hybrid but it's going to use Nissan's new e-power technology and not the

Mitsubishi drive system that's going to be in the Rogue this year. But the SUV won't just be a plug-in

hybrid there will be internal combustion engines available as well. So what exactly is e-power? Well

this is the third generation of the system even if we didn't get all the iterations of the first

and second generation in North America and it's set up to give 15% enhancement in economy especially

at highway speeds. It's not set up like most hybrids on the market. It's going to be more

like the Ram 1500 Ram Charger and to a degree the previous Chevrolet Volt where it's going

to have a small internal combustion engine that used more to create energy for the battery that then powers the wheels It be electric motors powering the wheels from the battery and internal combustion

but there's no direct connection it sounds like between the engine and the wheels. Now Nissan

claims this will make it feel more like an electric vehicle to drive and they're not wrong about that

and by not having the actual engine hooked up mechanically to the wheels, they can isolate the

vibrations and harshness of the engine more from the driver. So it should be very smooth

It probably just be a mild little engine noise in the background

The battery will be lithium ion, and as I said, it'll be used to power the electric motor, as Nissan said

But I would guess there might be two motors if it's gonna be all-wheel drive

or maybe it'll just be a single motor that splits power between front and rear

I can't imagine the plug-in hybrid Rogue will not have all-wheel drive, at least as an option

And although details are pretty scarce at this time, the brand did tell us that the generator motor will be a new 1.5 liter

Now they didn't say three cylinder or four cylinder or turbo or not, but that's what will be in there to help generate power for the battery and the electric motor

Nissan said this vehicle will come out in financial year 26, so that should be sometime in the next 12 to 24 months

So moving on to other big selling Nissan products, we have the Sentra

It's been on sale since 2019. and although it still does offer great value and it's pretty spacious

it's pretty much been passed by all of its main competitors. Well, Nissan said later this year an all-new Sentra will arrive

so we don't have to wait long to see it, and I'm really hoping maybe a performance version of the vehicle returns

like that 1.5-liter turbocharged three-cylinder, or if I'm really dreaming, how about the 2-liter turbo

and you can go right after things like the Elantra N. I doubt that's going to happen

but I am very curious to see what a new Sentra is going to be because although that segment has

been abandoned by some manufacturers, the ones that sell well, the Civics, the Corollas, they

still have very solid products. So hopefully Nissan delivers a great new Sentra. Also this year

the Pathfinder is getting a refresh and if I was a betting man, I would say the two liter turbo that

is in the QX60 and the Murano is going to find its way into the Pathfinder as well, but none of

that's been confirmed. Moving on to EVs, there's some big news here and that's the next Leaf is

coming out a third generation and it gonna sort of change segments and be a crossover which you know what I usually so against cars becoming crossovers but with the Leaf it makes total sense It not exactly a performance vehicle

and it offered great space but it kind of had that stigma of being a small car

transform it to a small SUV and all of a sudden you're probably going to get a lot more market

interest. The new Leaf will be built on the CMF platform that is currently shared with the Aria

and Nissan said it'll have improvements in aerodynamics and the EV architecture will lead

to a better vehicle. It's going to have available 19 inch wheels and available panoramic moonroof

and in North America we're going to get the NACS charge port so it can use all of the Tesla

supercharged network. Also stuffed in there is that there will be a small micro SUV EV which is

interesting because you already have the Aria that kind of fights in the the big segment of

somewhere between compact and mid-size. The Leaf will obviously be the slightly smaller compact

size and then the Micra might be subcompact. There's not many vehicles down there and they

didn't say if we're getting it North America but this is a very America Canada centered news

release so I don't think they'd throw it in there for nothing so I'm curious to see what this leads

to. Finally for Nissan in financial year 27 there will be an all-new Nissan EV that will be built

at their Canton, Mississippi plant in the United States. And they say this all new model

will be an adventure focused SUV. What that means exactly could be interpreted a million ways

I doubt it's gonna be a forerunner passport, all electric competitor, but it may sort of go somewhere in between

like maybe the Subaru Solterra where it's got off-road capability while still being an EV SUV

that you can live with every day. Again, I'm just speculating. We have no idea what I do know is in this press release there was no mention of the Versa or Altima

So I think we can kind of see the writing maybe on the wall for those vehicles or sadly the GTR

And there's no mention about the trucks, but I'm sure they will continue in that sort of a separate area of the brand

So let's move on to infinity and the brand stated in this press release that going forward

Infinity will be distinguished better from its Nissan siblings now Now I would argue this has kind of already started

as the QX60 and the Pathfinder did feel a little more separate than they used to

And speaking of the QX60, it too will be refreshed this year just like its Pathfinder sibling And I curious to see what changes come as last year the QX60 already got the new engine And while on this topic Infiniti will launch an all QX65 crossover

coupe. Yes, Infiniti's going back to crossover SUV coupes like the QX50 had the QX55 counterpart

I would imagine this is basically gonna be Infiniti's sibling to the Murano. I am certain

the styling will be more coupe-like and I mean the Murano, Pathfinder, QX60 are all sharing a

platform anyway but I figure that's where this is going and I'll be very curious to see how

different it feels as the Murano itself went up market and more premium. So how will they make

this feel even more luxurious compared to that model? Other news this year is a new sport package

is going to arrive for the full-size QX80 SUV which is not a sporty vehicle in any sense. I doubt

this is going to make it any sportier to drive, but it might add some sportier looks, I guess

to make it look a little more aggressive. And stepping outside of the bounds of this press

release, the brand also mentioned for the 28th financial year, there will be an all-new luxury

Infiniti EV SUV inspired by the Vision QX-E concept. This could be the brand's new Halo EV

but it's quite a ways off, and I'm sure we'll see more concepts or at least teasers before that time

That new Nissan in financial year 27 and the new Infiniti in financial year 28 are going to have batteries built in the USA as part of a $661 million investment

So more than just new models, Nissan Infiniti is also trying to get their finances in order

And the brand states they are simplifying the operations for retail programs so they can attack cost structures

So the question is, will this all work? Well, I think that's 100% dependent on how the actual products are

Nissan Infinity still have a big enough name and dealer network that if they deliver competitive products

they should be able to start to rebound. I just hope that they can get things in order to get through this transition and the products end up being good

But we won't know until later this year. And of course, as they roll out, we at AutoGuide will be first to get in line to test them out and let you know how they are