Nissan to continue selling petrol and diesel cars alongside future electric vehicles

Amid the hype over electric cars, Nissan says it will continue to offer petrol and diesel vehicles in countries with slow take-up of future technology.

Japanese car giant Nissan says it won’t turn its back on buyers of petrol and diesel vehicles despite a push to go electric in Europe.

Nissan announced on Monday that up to 75 per cent of vehicles it sells in Europe will be hybrid or electric by 2030 – and that it will stop development of new petrol or diesel engines to meet strict new Euro 7 emissions requirements.

However, the two most senior executives in the company have now assured Australian customers they are not about to vacate the petrol and diesel segments locally.

The diesel-powered Nissan Navara ute and petrol-powered Nissan X-Trail are the two most popular models in the Nissan line-up locally.

Combined they account for two thirds of all Nissan sales in Australia.

By comparison the electric Nissan Leaf accounts for less than one per cent of Nissan sales in Australia. 

Nissan says while it plans to introduce a number of new electric cars locally in the future, it will only do so when there is buyer demand.

The global chief operating officer of Nissan, Ashwani Gupta, told an international media conference: “We want customers to have the natural choice of going for battery-electric vehicles.”

Mr Gupta said while 75 per cent of Nissan vehicles sold in Europe will be electric by the end of this decade, “in other markets things will be different, depending on gasoline prices, depending on the regulations, and depending on the product offerings (from rivals).”

The president and chief executive officer of Nissan globally, Makato Uchida, told the conference: “We need to monitor the speed of market acceptance. From that context we are designing many scenarios and (vehicle) availability for each market.”

Mr Gupta added: “Australia is a great market for us and we are moving forward and strengthening our product line-up. Thanks to our sourcing either out of Thailand or out of Europe, we are going to get into the product line-up of Australia.”

However, the executive said, it was too early to announce which models each country would receive.

“Today is too early,” said Mr Gupta. “We announced 23 products in 2030, out of which 15 are battery electric. We announced 20 vehicles by 2026, out of which nine are battery electric, but we are not sharing region by region and model by model.”

When Drive asked Nissan how long the company would continue to manufacture petrol and diesel engines for Australia and surrounding countries, both executives declined to comment. 

The post Nissan to continue selling petrol and diesel cars alongside future electric vehicles appeared first on Drive.

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