Nissan’s mid-term FY 2022 roadmap targets sale of 1m electrified vehicles each year

Nissan Motor Co today unveiled plans to launch growing numbers of electrified vehicles, expand and evolve autonomous driving systems, and accelerate vehicle connectivity as part of its ‘Nissan MOVE to 2022’ midterm plan. Among the targets is sale of a million electrified vehicles – either pure electric models or those with e-Power powertrains – annually by fiscal year 2022.

As part of this plan, Nissan plans to develop eight new pure EVs, building on the success of the new Leaf; launch an electric car offensive in China under different brands; introduce an electric ‘kei’ mini-car in Japan; develop a global crossover EV, inspired by the Nissan IMx Concept; electrify new Infiniti models from FY2021; equip 20 models in 20 markets with autonomous driving technology; and, reach 100 percent connectivity for all new Nissan, Infiniti and Datsun cars sold in key markets by the end of the plan.

Philippe Klein, Nissan’s chief planning officer, said, “Our product and technology strategy is dedicated to positioning Nissan to lead the automotive, technology and business evolution. Our efforts are focused on delivering Nissan Intelligent Mobility, encompassing the three core elements of electrification, autonomous drive, connectivity and new mobility services.”

Speaking at a media briefing alongside senior vice-presidents Takao Asami and Ogi Redzic, who lead the respective autonomous driving and connectivity projects at the Alliance, Klein reaffirmed that the midterm plan aims to boost annualised revenue by 30% to 16.5 trillion yen by the end of fiscal year 2022. The company is also targeting an 8% core operating profit margin and cumulative free cash flow of 2.5 trillion yen.

Klein pledged to leverage the platform and powertrain assets of Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi to support the company’s goals.

Electrification strategy
As part of its electrification strategy, Philippe Klein, Nissan’s chief planning officer, revealed that the carmaker will beging a product offensive strategy in China that will be led by a new C-segment electric vehicle this year, which will probably be derived on its Nissan Leaf technology.

The product offensive will also include an affordable EV in China through the Renault-Nissan Alliance joint venture, eGT New Energy Automotive. This new affordable EV will be jointly developed by the Alliance and Dongfeng on an A-segment SUV platform. And further two EV derivatives are also being prepared for the Venucia brand.

Nissan Leaf

The Japanese carmarker will also continue to expand its e-Power technology, which is already offered on the Nissan Note and Nissan Serena in Japan. It claims more than 129,000 Note e-Power models were sold in Japan in its first year, with more than two-thirds of Note customers opting for the e-Power models compared to the baseline model.

Nissan expects that electrified vehicles – including electric vehicles and e-POWER models – will make up 40 percent of the company’s sales in Japan and Europe by 2022, and 50 percent by 2025. In the United Stated, it expects it to reach around 20-30 percent by 2025, while in China it expects 35-40 percent.

Infiniti will accelerate the electrification trend, with new models being either pure electric vehicles or utilising e-Power technology from the fiscal year 2021. By 2025, it expects electrified vehicles to comprise 50 percent of its global sales.

Autonomous vehicles
As part of its strategy for autonomous driving systems, Nissan announced plans to deploy ProPILOT technology in 20 models in 20 markets by 2022. The company expects to sell 1 million ProPilot-equipped vehicles a year by 2022.

This will be followed by enhancing ProPilot capabilities for automated multilane driving on highways and managing vehicle destinations. The enhanced capability will be introduced in Japan as a pilot project within one year.

Enhancing connectivity and mobility services
Redzic announced an objective to offer connectivity for 100 percent of new Nissan, Infiniti and Datsun cars sold in key markets, enabled by the launch of the Alliance Connected Cloud. This will support infotainment services, as well as a single communication mechanism to facilitate updates over the air for all vehicles.  It will also provide a foundation to enable the expansion of connected and mobility services for Nissan, including robo-vehicle ride-hailing services.

Nissan Pivo2 comes with an in-built robot companion

Nissan had tested its first robo-vehicle ride-hailing service called 'Easy Ride' with partner DeNA earlier this month. By the early 2020s, Nissan aims to provide commercial services directly to customers.