What Nissan Learned From China

Nissan has a product problem. The company can make great cars when it wants to, but an institutional addiction to letting things wither on the vine has created a problem with staying competitive—and the perception of being cutting-edge.

At any given time, some Nissans are great, and others are relics from a forgotten time. That makes it hard to convince people that the company is a pioneer, or a brand they want to buy from. At long last, the company is trying to tackle its biggest cultural issue.

"We're not quick enough," Chief Performance Officer Guillaume Cartier told media outlets, including InsideEVs, during Nissan's future product showcase event in Japan last week. "This is something we're planning to address." 

Photo by: Nissan

Nissan has plenty of products coming in the next couple of years. But whether it can sustain its wide lineup amid a capital crunch is an open question.

Incoming CEO Ivan Espinosa was, until March 31, the company's Chief Planning Officer. He oversaw product planning for the entire company, so the company's issues with executing timely programs is something he knows well. Fixing it is one of his first priorities. 

"Today, developing one car takes us around 55 months," Espinosa said. "What we're doing is by doing family planning and other changes in our development cycles, we want the first car in the family to be done in 37 months, and the second car or third car or fourth car in the family is developed in 30 months."

So while it may take 37 months to develop the upcoming Xterra-inspired adventure EV, the Infiniti version should take less than three years. That's over two years quicker than it usually takes Nissan to design and produce a new model.  

Nissan CEO Ivan Espinosa (left) with Chief Performance Officer Guillaume Cartier (right).

Photo by: Nissan

That slow pace has put Nissan behind many Western competitors. The Leaf has soldiered on with an outdated CHAdeMO plug for years after the industry abandoned it, and even the 2024 model is still air-cooled. Its gas products fare no better, with cars like the Frontier and Z being based on platforms that are old enough to join the Army. The company is just too slow relative to its conventional peers.

Plus, there's a new challenge on the block: Chinese automakers, which are running rings around legacy manufacturers. The Wall Street Journal notes that Chinese luxury brand Nio can do an all-new car in 36 months, while Zeekr—which is under the same corporate umbrella as Volvo—can make a product from scratch in just 24 months.

That's why Ponz Pandikuthira, Nissan's chief planning officer for the Americas, described the rise of Chinese EVs as the auto market's iPhone moment. Their technology and pace of development are just leaving traditional automakers in the dust. 

Photo by: Nissan

A teaser for Nissan's Xterra-inspired adventure EV.

Nissan's attempt to catch up is necessary. Whether it'll be successful is another thing entirely. Nissan design boss Alfonso Albaisa described how the company was pushing design checkpoints closer together, cutting many of the intermediate steps and reducing how many employees influence design. But the real challenge will be addressing the cultural aspect: How do you take a company that is used to being slow, methodical and unhurried and teach it to run with the quickest in the pack?

Espinosa, Cartier and Albaisa seem excited by the challenge. But it's not the first time I've heard Nissan pitching a turnaround plan. The plan is the easy part. The execution will be hard, and Nissan has to prove that it's changed if it wants to keep consumers excited. 

"It's a good start, but, everything is coming quite late, so all of these measures should have been taken some years ago," JATO Global Automotive Analyst Felipe Munoz told InsideEVs. "Not three or four years after the Chinese just took off. But still, everything is welcome to solve their situation and catch up."

Contact the author: Mack.hogan@insideevs.com.