Nissan charging ahead with more electric vehicles

Japanese brand set to launch 19 new EVs before 2030

By John Mahony, carsales.com.au

Nissan has pressed the fast-forward button on its electric vehicle strategy, promising to speed-up the number of battery-powered vehicles it will introduce by 2030.

Just two years after it laid out its road map to electrification, the Japanese brand has updated its plans – under the umbrella of its Nissan Ambition 2030 strategy – to increase its scheduled range of electric vehicles from 15 to 19.

It is yet to be known how many of these vehicles will be made available to Nissan Australia, but the local arm is keen to build on the foundations laid by the Leaf which was one of the first, modern fully electric vehicles offered locally when it went on-sale in Australia in 2014.

We know one of the new additions will be an EV specifically tailored for the Chinese market that will be introduced as soon as 2024, and that a replacement for the Leaf will transition from today’s hatchback bodystyle to become an SUV.

There will also be a new-generation Nissan Micra city car that will share plenty with the incoming Renault 5 and R4, as well as battery-powered versions of the Juke, Qashqai and X-Trail that will all arrive between 2025 and 2027.

Other EVs in the pipeline include a small hatch that’s being developed alongside alliance partner Renault for South America.

Motivating Nissan to accelerate its EV plans are, the company says, “changes in customer needs and the business environment”.

Nissan has also tweaked its forecast for how many electrified vehicles (including hybrids) it will sell in its fiscal year 2026, with the car maker now expecting 98 per cent saturation in Europe – up from its previous estimate of 75 per cent.

Even in the Japanese market, Nissan thinks 58 per cent of all cars it sells will be electrified, up from 55 per cent.

The only market for which it has wound back its estimate is China, where Nissan now thinks its electrified mix will only be 35 per cent, down from 40 per cent.

Come 2030, Nissan says it has projected that the global electrified vehicle mix across the Nissan and INFINITI brands of 55 per cent, up from 50 per cent.

It will also become an EV-only brand in the US from 2030.

Despite Nissan ramping up its EVs globally, none of these newly announced electric cars have yet to be confirmed for Australia.

Nissan Australia has only just begun to expand its range of electrified options beyond the battery-powered Leaf with the introduction of the Nissan X-Trail e-Power, which uses electric motors to drive the wheels while having a small petrol engine act as an on-board generator to fill-up the battery pack.

It was expected to offer a similar powertrain option in the smaller Qashqai SUV later this year but has been forced to delay its introduction indefinitely due to limited production availability for right-hand drive markets.

Nissan has also yet to confirm any local details for the arrival of its stylish, all-electric Ariya SUV that went on-sale in Japan and the USA last year.


^{Disclaimer: Images supplied by Nissan.}

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