Nissan Shuts Down U.S. Design Studios and Cuts Staff

Nissan, still fighting to stabilize its finances, revealed yesterday that it will restructure its global design operations to better allocate resources and speed up the development of new models.

Back in May, newly appointed CEO Ivan Espinosa unveiled a sweeping recovery plan that includes laying off around 20,000 employees over the next two years and closing seven of the company’s seventeen factories worldwide.

Now it’s clear that the cuts will heavily impact Nissan’s design network. The automaker confirmed that its Nissan Design America (NDA) studio in San Diego, California, and Nissan Design Latin America (NDLA) studio in São Paulo, Brazil, will be shut down. Staffing at its London and Japan studios will also be significantly reduced.

The reorganization of Nissan’s design divisions is scheduled to wrap up by the end of fiscal year 2025 (spring 2026). Afterward, Nissan will retain just five design studios worldwide. The main hub will be the Nissan Global Design Center in Atsugi, Japan, while the experimental Creative Box studio in Tokyo will continue handling special projects. In the U.S., only Studio Six in Los Angeles will remain operational. A downsized Nissan Design Europe in London will cover not only Europe but also Africa, the Middle East, India, and Oceania. The Shanghai studio in China will remain untouched, as that market remains critical for Nissan.

The company emphasizes that consolidating its design operations will accelerate development for both Nissan and Infiniti models. While designs will be simpler, Nissan insists quality will not suffer. Earlier this year, the automaker announced plans to reduce model complexity by about 70% and shrink its platform count from thirteen to seven by 2035. The development cycle for new models is expected to shorten from 37 to 30 months.

Despite the downsizing, Nissan promises more exciting vehicles in the coming years. Among them: the Infiniti Q50 sport sedan will return to the U.S. in 2027 with a powerful V6 and a manual transmission, and a new generation of the rugged body-on-frame Nissan Xterra SUV is slated for 2028.