Now that it is turning the corner, Nissan is looking at hitting the gas. The Japanese automaker is looking to slash its new vehicle development times in half, and it is looking to its biggest threat to find out how to do it. Nissan is cribbing China’s notes on development methods used by carmakers in that country as it looks to compete with them on the market.
Nissan Wants To Develop Cars In Half The Time
Nissan Urban SUV ConceptNissan
An automaker in China can bring a car from concept to market in what feels like just months. For legacy automakers in the US, Europe, and Japan, this process takes several years.
Nissan’s new boss, Ivan Espinosa, told Nikkei about the automaker’s new goals. The example he gave was the Skyline sedan. The previous generation, sold as the Infiniti Q60 in the US, took 55 months to develop. The new one will be ready in just 26. The company has a target of no more than 30 months for all of its vehicles going forward, though even that can’t match 18-month cycles in China.
If All Goes According To Plan, The New Skyline Will Debut Later This Year
“A big part of this is built on AI capabilities and the utilization of new tools, more digital tools in the design phase, in the testing phase, in the manufacturing phase,” Espinosa said. While AI language models are often the most recognizable form of the technology, it is also useful in engineering and design, where it can simulate and test multiple variations of a part in rapid succession to design and optimize it.
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Nissan will be getting help from Dongfeng Motor, its joint venture partner in China. Dongfeng took just 24 months to develop the Dongfeng Nissan EV launched in 2025, and Nissan craves more of that speed. It’s propelling the return of arguably the most iconic performance nameplates in Nissan’s history, the Skyline, expected to debut later in 2026 as a 2027 model.
China Is ‘Setting The Standards’ And Nissan Needs To Learn
Nissan Dongfeng N7
Nissan
“China is as of now setting the industry standards of the future in terms of technology, in terms of cost competitiveness and in terms of development time,” Espinosa said. Nissan, he said, needs “to learn from China and export know-how from China.”
Espinosa has already had plenty to say about the vehicles that will result from this faster development. The automaker plans five new SUVs and pickups, and will begin building a truck based on the Frontier for sale in the US by Mitsubishi.
The automaker is planning to use three vehicle platform families to cover 80% of its sales around the globe. Nissan has confirmed new body-on-frame vehicles are coming to the US, with a new Xterra SUV expected to arrive as the first in 2028. With those, Nissan will launch a new V6 engine as well as a hybrid V6 for fuel economy.
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Nissan has been going through a massive restructuring since even before Espinosa took the helm in 2025. The company was losing more than $1 billion per quarter. Since then, Espinosa has cut excess production capacity, moved models to plants where production made more sense, and generally stopped the bleeding.
CarBuzz Insight – Why This Matters:
Nissan CEO Ivan Espinosa Driving Infinti QX80 PrototypeNissan
Nissan is now making money again, though it will have to keep its model improvements going in order to maintain that. With R&D cut by 18% this year, that could be a challenge. However, slashing development times to bring it on par or even close to its Chinese rivals would effectively cut R&D costs per vehicle by even more.
That could give Nissan the extra cash to make more fun cars. It could also make investors happy by restoring dividends. But the cars have to be good. Reliable, desirable, and priced well. That could be the hard part with the new short development timelines. We’ll find out, possibly beginning with the next Skyline and its Infiniti cohort, if it gets one.
Source: Nikkei
