Nissan plans fightback in Europe’s “difficult market” with Juke and Leaf to lead
Nissan vows to grow to 500,000 sales in Europe by 2030, and backs UK manufacturing – though it wants more clarity from the government
Nissan remains committed to Europe and aims to grow sales by one-third here, despite it being one of the world’s “most difficult markets”, the company’s top executives have told Auto Express.
The company today outlined its future product, technology and markets strategy at a Nissan Vision event at its Yokohama HQ. Nissan will invest in 45 global models, a reduction from 56 vehicles today, as it seeks to boost scale on shared family architectures, to improve cost efficiencies, its speed to market and manufacturing flexibility.
New cars for Europe from Asia: flagship NX8 EV and new X-Trail
Europe is not a core market for Nissan, with the dominant three territories being the US, China and Japan - this due to their bigger volume potential, China’s status as a new tech melting pot and domestic loyalty to Japan. But products developed for these markets will feed Europe, with Auto Express revealing that the NX8 electric SUV produced in China with Dongfeng is bound for Europe.
“The mission for these three deep markets, apart from being successful markets by themselves, is to make sure they’re feeding competitive products to the rest of the regions, specifically to Europe,” CEO Ivan Espinosa told Auto Express.
A good example is the Nissan X-Trail SUV, unveiled in its latest iteration at the Nissan Vision event, which will be built in Japan, exported to the US with its first e-power hybrid drivetrain and ultimately filter through to Europe.
Europe’s non-core status, and it accepting products from Nissan’s global engineering network, is industrial reality and not a new strategy; the Nissan Ariya electric crossover fits that template. Espinosa vowed it wouldn’t lead to products inappropriate for European customers, but added that the numbers simply didn’t add up unless “investment is shouldered by other markets”.
Does this mean Nissan’s UK factory is under threat?
The strategy shouldn’t impact the mid-term future of Nissan Manufacturing UK (NMUK), based in Sunderland, with Espinosa expressing his belief in the UK’s biggest volume plant.
“We are committed to NMUK,” vowed the CEO. “We are just rolling out the Leaf and you saw that beautiful Juke, [which] will also be European. These are examples of what we’re doing with NMUK.”
The fact that the all-electric Juke shares its architecture, batteries and motors with the new Leaf it’s built alongside shows that the Sunderland plant already conforms to Nissan Vision’s new efficient engineering philosophy.
Europe is loss-making – and regulation is “unstable”
Nissan’s chief performance officer Guillaume Cartier revealed that “the ambition is to go [for] half a million [units] in Europe”. That’s by 2030 and a big jump on the 2024-25 financial year reporting soon, with sales projected to be 330,000.
“Half a million is what we want to be and I would also say that’s what we need to be, to make sure earnings will be higher than the fixed costs.” Nissan is struggling to break even, because the total market is still smaller than pre-Covid levels and competition is intensifying with new Chinese brands taking share.
“Europe is not an easy case: I think it’s one of the most difficult,” Cartier told us. “But we are committed to Europe as we know this is an area where you can test and develop some technology that can have a good impact on the rest of the world.” E-power, the range extender hybrid technology blooded in the UK-assembled Qashqai, is a case in point.
Cartier, like executives across the European car industry, bemoaned the cost of meeting the world’s toughest regulatory regime here, and the fact that Europe is loosening the ‘CAFE’ emissions obligations and no longer sounds committed to totally banning sales of new combustion cars in 2035. He also namechecked the UK, which – at least officially – plans to go 100 per cent electric five years earlier.
“If you look at Europe and the UK, you have some specific difficulty, because from a regulation point of view, this is not stable.” He continued: “The UK is not really clear and the government, we are asking them to help us, because sometimes [politicians move faster] than we can follow.” But he added that dialogue was good, with Nissan collaborating as it seeks the clarity that will help it plan its products long-term.
Did you know you can sell your car through Auto Express? We’ll help you get a great price and find a great deal on a new car, too.
