NEW YORK — Along with offering ideas on a future Xterra whereas on the New York Worldwide Auto Present, Nissan Americas Senior Vice President and Chief Planning Officer Ponz Pandikuthira additionally talked with us a bit about EVs, and extra particularly mannequin traces and nameplates. We have seen just a few methods starting from virtually utterly new and parallel mannequin traces (akin to Hyundai’s Ioniqs and Kia’s EV#s), to reusing outdated names on nonetheless equally parallel fashions (akin to Chevy’s Equinox, Blazer and Silverado EVs), and naturally blends of the 2. Up to now, Nissan has gone with the separate mannequin route with Leaf and Ariya, however that might not be as a lot the case sooner or later.
Pandikuthira famous that now, shoppers do not have as a lot curiosity of their EVs being some utterly distinctive, assertion piece. As such, each Nissan and Infiniti can be including EVs to present nameplates extra so than completely new mannequin traces. He did not say whether or not they would merely be electrical variants of present inner combustion fashions, or one thing like Chevy’s mannequin, although. However he did observe that the Nissan Ariya was, at one level, thought-about as a attainable Murano successor.
It actually would make sense to us. The Ariya is a distinct-looking crossover, and one with a really upscale inside, each key tenets of the Murano from that mannequin’s introduction within the early 2000s. Plus, the Murano is in fairly dire want of a substitute, as the present era dates again practically a decade in the past to the 2015 mannequin yr. The rationale Pandikuthira gave for the Ariya determination was that the crossover represented sufficient of a change in Nissan’s EV know-how and capabilities that the model wished to focus on that with a novel nameplate.
Nissan will not be ruling out the potential for new EV-only fashions, although. Similar to with Ariya, Pandikuthira advised us that if a deliberate automotive is exclusive sufficient, the corporate will nonetheless be open to a brand new line. However count on extra, say, electrical Rogues and Altimas than completely new names.
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