Photo: Nissan
Nissan has been through a lot of leadership changes recently and has faced the dual crisis of COVID-19 and global recession with the rest of its industry. Recently, the automaker revealed its plans for the next four years, which puts optimization, streamlining, and sustainable growth at the forefront of its strategy.
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Restructuring, cost reduction, and a greater emphasis on efficiency
Photo: Nissan
Nissan plans to trim the fluff from its operations. This will mean reducing its yearly production by about 20 percent. That’ll translate to a yearly production of 5.4 million vehicles. The automaker also wants to boost its facilities’ utilization rate north of 80 percent, to maximize profit and productivity.
Nissan also intends to trim its global selection of models in the coming years. The automaker intends to reduce its lineup from a nice 69 down to 55 or fewer models. Unfortunately, this will mean closing Nissan plants in Spain and Indonesia. On top of that, Nissan will collaborate with its alliance partners for a helping hand with resources, technologies, and designs. All of these changes aim to reduce the company’s fixed expenses by 300 billion yen, or about $2.8 billion dollars.
Putting the focus on key markets and products
Photo: Nissan
Instead of spreading its efforts thin across the globe, Nissan plans on focusing on its core markets in the coming years. This means pouring more resources into its operations in North America, China, and Japan, and exiting the market in South Korea and Russia.
While Nissan intends to streamline its operations, the automaker plans on bringing us 12 new models over the course of the next 18 months. On top of that, Nissan will also put more emphasis on its sports cars and electrified vehicles, as well as large and medium cars.
Nissan isn’t kidding about getting serious about EVs. The automaker plans to move a million EVs by the end of 2023, which will be aided by the release of two more EVs in the Japanese market. Plus, we can expect to see more high-tech driver-assist innovations from Nissan, including the expansion of ProPILOT semi-autonomous technology. By the end of the fiscal year 2023, Nissan wants this smart technology in more than 20 models and a total of 1.5 million vehicles.
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Nissan has a lot of adversity to overcome, and time will tell if these plans will be successful. We’ll keep you up to date on all the changes affecting North American customers.
Kimiko Kidd is a native Daytonian. She graduated from Wright State University with degrees in environmental science and sociology. She loves her trusty old Honda Civic, but dreams of owning a 1974 Ford Falcon XB with a custom paint job and a vintage Kawasaki Z1000. In her free time, Kimiko can be found watercolor-painting, baking muffins, collecting rocks, playing old-school Nintendo games, writing her novel, sewing stuffed animals, and cosplaying as her favorite Mad Max characters. See more articles by Kimiko.
