In a wide-ranging interview with the Financial Times, Nissan CEO Ivan Espinosa has talked about how the Japanese automaker landed in its current predicament, and what he plans to do after he’s completed the current slash-and-burn program.
Mr Espinosa spoke to the business newspaper during a recent visit to the company’s UK technical centre, and during the chat he gave a blunt warning about the company’s future.
“It’s becoming increasingly difficult for [automakers] of our size to remain relevant in this environment,” he said. “You need to remain open and flexible.”
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Legacy automakers are currently struggling with differing levels of electric vehicle take-up in different regions, Chinese companies expanding their sales and footprint across the world, tariff uncertainty in the USA, tightening safety and emissions rules, and the prospect of autonomous vehicles on the horizon.
On top of this, Nissan is in a financial mess, largely of its own making. In the financial year ending March 2025 it lost ¥670.9 billion (A$7.1bn), and expects another multi-billion dollar loss for the current year.
When asked how the company landed in this position, Mr Espinosa said the company “forgot who we were . . . and we became a financial target company”, referencing the lofty sales targets set by former CEO Carlos Ghosn, as well as the hefty discounts and incentives used in trying to reach those goals.
After starting in the top job in April 2025, Mr Espinosa launched the company’s latest turnaround plan, dubbed Re:Nissan, which will see 20,000 people lose their jobs, the closure of seven factories around the world, the pausing of mid-term product development, and the sale of the Yokohama F-Marinos soccer team and the company’s global headquarters.
Beyond this the CEO says he has worked behind the scenes to break down silos, which he says were hampering decision-making, and address the toxic culture within the company. He claims “there was a lot of politics in the past, a lot of tension and a lot of posturing by executives”, but that is “not the case anymore”.
As for the future, Mr Espinosa is looking to slash the development time for new models to between 30 and 37 months. It is also leaning on Dongfeng, its Chinese joint-venture partner, to help develop electric and plug-in hybrid vehicles even more quickly.
The two have so far jointly engineered the N7 sedan and Frontier Pro ute, both of which are slated for release outside of China. The N7 has been confirmed for the Middle East, and is a possibility for Australia, while the Frontier Pro dual-cab is due to land Down Under in 2027.
He also believes Nissan is in a “very unique position to become the Japanese leader of intelligent mobility”. Autonomous driving has so far been a money pit for many automakers, with Ford and Volkswagen closing their Argo AI joint venture in 2022, and GM closing its Cruise robotaxi division in late 2024.
Mr Espinosa left open the possibility of the company being sold under his watch, simply saying: “Anything can happen in this crazy world.”
Honda and Nissan called off their merger in early 2025 after Honda asked for Nissan to effectively become a subsidiary. While Honda, Nissan and Mitsubishi are still discussing ways to collaborate, nothing has been agreed upon.
Meanwhile the Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi Alliance is much looser than it was during the Ghosn era. The three automakers still collaborate on specific models and projects, such as the Renault R5-based Nissan Micra, but joint procurement and platform development are a thing of the past. Renault now has partnerships with Geely in Asia and Latin America, and Ford in Europe.