Nissan Unveils New Development Strategy as It Looks to Catch Up With Chinese Automakers

Nissan has unveiled a new “family strategy” designed to significantly shorten vehicle development times as the Japanese automaker looks to catch up with Chinese manufacturers and improve its financial performance.

Most automakers now acknowledge that competing with Chinese companies is difficult because they can update and launch vehicles at a much faster pace. Nissan, however, may have found a way to close the gap. The Japanese automaker says it plans to cut the time required to develop new models by 40%.

Nissan is currently in a difficult financial position. The company reported losses of $4.55 billion and $3.06 billion in the past two fiscal years, respectively. However, Nissan believes the core problem goes beyond its finances and lies in the increasingly competitive market. According to a Nissan general manager, Chinese automakers are changing the rules of the global automotive industry. That is why the company began restructuring its business model 18 months ago, with the goal of reducing investment while making vehicle development faster and more efficient.

In the past, Nissan needed roughly 50 months to develop a new vehicle. Under the new strategy, the company will take a different approach by developing several new vehicles simultaneously around a common architecture.

The process will be divided into several stages. First, Nissan will gather information about the needs and preferences of individual markets. Based on that data, the company will select several models that meet those requirements and create a development plan for what it calls a “family project.” Nissan will then choose a lead vehicle—the model expected to have the strongest demand—followed by the other vehicles in the family. Development will then begin with an emphasis on maximizing component commonality among the models.

Nissan says the new approach could reduce development time for an entirely new vehicle to 37 months. Within a single vehicle family, the company expects to be able to bring as many as five models to market over a two-year period.

The strategy also calls for a new approach to collaboration both within Nissan and with its suppliers. The automaker plans to bring engineers and specialists from different divisions, as well as parts suppliers, into the development process at an earlier stage.

The first products developed under the new strategy will be a family of body-on-frame SUVs designed specifically for the U.S. market. The revived Nissan Xterra will reportedly be the first to arrive, followed by a new three-row SUV, the next-generation Nissan Frontier, and two Infiniti models.