Nissan recently announced an ambitious EV strategy. Over the next five years, the second-largest Japanese auto manufacturer will invest $17.6 billion to electrify its lineup of vehicles.
And it’s quite the lengthy lineup indeed.
Nissan will roll out twenty-three new models by 2030, including 15 new electric vehicles. The first to arrive will be the Nissan Arya next spring. Nissan aims to have 50% of its lineup electrified by the end of the decade, hoping to turn an annual profit for the first time since 2019.
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“We have a decade-long jump start on our competitors with electrification. We will utilize this experience and accelerate the shift with future investment.”
-Makoto Uchida, CEO
Nissan gave us a taste of what’s to come for its electric-centric future: a small pickup truck called Surf-Out; a boxy crossover called Hang-Out; a compact SUV called Chill-Out; and a convertible sports car called Max-Out. While we didn’t get any specs for the upcoming EVs, we did get a look at some pretty cool concept art.
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Nissan Surf-Out
Nissan’s electric pickup truck, dubbed the Surf-Out is the featured off-road explorer. It has a spacy minimalist interior for plenty of cargo space. It also has a unique lighting system, featuring cute quirks such as heart emojis floating up from the brake lights.
You won’t be surfing any waves with this car, but you can ride the sand dunes and grassy hills offroad. Just make sure to fully charge the battery before venturing out far.
Hang-Out
The Hang-Out is intended to be your personal space made mobile, with cozy interiors and seats that turn 360 degrees. The floor of the vehicle is also wholly flat, just like the ones at home.
It will feature Nissan’s e-4ORCE all-wheel-drive setup and ProPilot driver assistance technologies to help you navigate your trips.
Chill-Out
Perhaps most similar in design to the Nissan Arya is the Chill-Out, which utilizes the same CMF-EV platform.
This SUV will likely be the soonest of the bunch to hit production. In what looks to be a self-driving car, you’ll be able to quite literally sit back, put your feet up and relax while watching a movie on the ride.
Nissan Max-Out
The Max Out is the sportiest model of the bunch, with an emphasis on speed and performance.
The seats feature a multi-layered structure that folds back onto the surface of the car. In addition, Nissan says that it will include dynamic cornering and steering response that’s balanced with little body roll to optimize driver and passenger comfort.
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Part of Nissan’s funding will build a $1.4 billion plant in the U.K. to manufacture battery-powered cars. The firm also plans to increase its global battery production capacity to 130 gigawatt-hours by 2030 and launch a BEV equipped with a solid-state battery by 2028. The hope with solid-state batteries is that they charge faster, hold more power, and last longer than traditional lithium-ion batteries. We shall see if Nissan’s engineers are the ones to solve that puzzle.
Another critical allocation of the funding will go towards infrastructure by reinforcing and building new EV charging networks.