Does Infiniti have a future?

[GranTurNismo]

Nevermind Infiniti: Does Nissan USA as a whole escape from this on top of their general slide into "the brand you go to when even the domestics won't finance you"

Yea, that's quite a hard thing to accomplish. It's already seen as the brand for people that need a new car yet barely have any money terrible credit scores? Like how Suzuki and Daewoo were viewed 15-20 years ago. Their new cars like the Rogue, Sentra, Versa, and even Altima usually sell for far below market value, and are almost always in base trim, more so compared to Hondas and Toyotas. Changing this perception of Nissan is like trying to change the perception of Cadillac and Lincoln being cars for old people and sub-par to their German and Japanese luxury competitors.

 

[Liquid]

While I don't know their situation in Europe, Nissan sales in the US were in free fall even before the entire company's upper management collapsed, nevermind when the pandemic hit (of which Nissan seems to have been one of the hardest hit so far).

Kind of the opposite.

After not unexpectedly reaching a nadir of 314,000 in 2007, Nissan sales in Europe generally climbed steadily between 2008-2017 by about 10% a year to an all-time high of 560,000. It's actually been their most consistent period of growth. The only only anomalous year was a 7% drop in 2012. However in the two years since 2017 sales dropped by 13% in 2018 and a further 19% in 2019 to 394,000. Not unexpected given the diesel scandals and Nissan's own corporate scandals but obviously worrying that they're not a million miles away from their lowest ebb of 2007.

People have definitely been reacting and walking to other dealerships since the brown paint hit the industrial fan but that's in contrast to strong growth before then.

 

[Tornado]

Sounds like they're getting Holden'd.

 

[GranTurNismo]

Sounds like they're getting Holden'd.

So Infiniti will be a Buick or Acura competitor now?

 

[Liquid]

I just don't see the point in Infiniti if it is no longer functioning as its original purpose as a luxury brand.

Why would you buy an Infiniti when you can buy a high-end Nissan? It's all very Edesl-ish.

 

[Eunos_Cosmo]

So Infiniti will be a Buick or Acura competitor now?

It's hard to say that, on-paper, this isn't quite similar to Acura. But Acura built their brand around uplifting ordinary platforms with cool tech like SH-AWD while maintaining high levels of reliability. It's a known quantity in a way. For Infiniti to abandon what made people love their brand (essentially, the FMR platform based performance sedans) will be seen as a sort of betrayal of their strongest fans (G35 people are definitely a thing, and they won't be happy about losing the FR platforms). I'm not sure Nissan/Infinitis track record for quality and reliability will sway the "reasonable choice" buyers away from Acura or Lexus. In short, I don't see this ending well for Infiniti.