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According to foreign media reports, Nissan said on February 17 that it would invest $500m (3.2 billion yuan) to renovate its plant in Canton, Mississippi, which is expected to be completed in 2025. After the transformation, Nissan will start producing two new electric vehicles at the plant from 2025, one of which is a Nissan-branded model and the other is an Infiniti model of Nissan's high-end brand. Nissan will achieve its goal of selling 40% of its total US sales of electric vehicles by 2030.

It is understood that Nissan's plant in Canton, Mississippi has been in operation for 19 years and has 5000 employees. Since it was put into production in 2003, Nissan has produced nearly 5 million new cars, including Nissan Altima (corresponding to domestic models Teana), Frontier, TITAN and TITAN XD. At present, the plant has two production lines with a capacity of 410000 vehicles, one of which produces light trucks (including Nissan Frontier) and the other is responsible for assembling Altima medium-sized cars. Ashwani Gupta, Nissan's chief operating officer, said: "the investment in the Mississippi plant is one of the company's" several investments "to increase the production of electric vehicles in the United States in the next five years. After this investment, Nissan will transform the plant's Altima production line so that it can produce both internal combustion engine cars and electric vehicles. Other space in the Mississippi plant will be used to make battery packs and run other businesses. In addition, Nissan will retrain 2000 employees at the plant as part of the new investment.

At present, some pictures of the two brand-new models of Nissan brand and Infiniti brand have been exposed on the Internet. from the exposed new model notice diagram, Nissan brand models and Infiniti brand models are designed with similar design concepts, but the details of the models will be different, and the positioning of future models will also be different. Judging from the exposure pictures, the front lines of the new car are very smooth and have electric car design elements, and it is expected that the new car will use through headlights. The side of the car body will be designed with a slippery back shape, and the taillights will also echo the headlights. In terms of power, the two models will be driven by pure electric power, but the specific parameters have not yet been officially announced.

Nissan, as an early leader in the electric vehicle industry, put forward the "Nissan Vision 2030" as early as last year. According to the plan released by Nissan at that time, Nissan will invest 2 trillion yen ($17.6 billion) in the next five years to convert more product lines to electrification, including 20 pure electric models and models equipped with Nissan e-POWER technology in the next five years. In fiscal year 2030, 23 electrified vehicles were launched, including 15 electric vehicles. Nissan has previously said it hopes to sell more than 40 per cent of its electric-driven models in China by fiscal year 2026 (2026.4.1-2027.3.31), compared with 75 per cent in Europe, 55 per cent in Japan and 40 per cent in the US. By fiscal year 2030 (2030.4.1-2031.3.31), Nissan and Infiniti accounted for 50 per cent of global electric-driven models. In addition, before fiscal year 2028, Nissan will launch electric vehicles with all-solid-state batteries (ASSB), with the goal of having about 52 gigawatt-hours of battery capacity by 2026 and 130 gigawatt-hours by 2030. According to the plan, if nothing happens, a pilot plant will be built in Yokohama, Japan as early as fiscal year 2024.

In addition, Nissan is also speeding up the pace of electrification. In February this year, foreign media reported that Nissan would stop developing most new gasoline engines for the Japanese, Chinese and European markets. After stopping the development of gasoline engines, these funds will be used for the development of electric vehicles and other technologies in the future.

Nissan launched its first all-electric model, the Leaf, in 2010, and has achieved good sales since its launch, but now it has been overtaken by Tesla's Model 3 sedan, according to official US data.

Looking at Nissan's domestic sales performance, over the past year, Nissan's annual sales in China totaled 1381494 vehicles in 2021, down 5.2 per cent from a year earlier. Among them, Dongfeng Motor's passenger car sales (including Nissan and Qichen brands) from January to December 2021 were 1134889, down 6.4% from the same period last year. In January this year, Nissan's sales in China also declined. Relevant data show that Nissan's terminal sales in China in January 2022 were 133500, down 8.7% from the same period last year. Dongfeng Nissan (including Nissan / Qichen / Infiniti) sold 111300 units Down 11.4% from the same period last year.

Judging from the layout of a series of actions of Nissan in the past two years, it is not difficult to find that Nissan is making a large investment transition to electrification, but many people in the automobile industry say that Nissan is investing in the transformation or complying with the electrification transformation of the entire Japanese car brand. now Japanese car companies, represented by Toyota and Honda, are making great efforts to increase the transformation of electrification. Toyota has previously announced that it will spend $35 billion on electric car research by 2030, while 30 more electric vehicles will be launched, when the Lexus brand will be fully transformed into an all-electric brand. In January, Honda also announced plans to form a joint venture with South Korean battery maker LG Energy in the United States to produce power batteries. To sum up, it also means that the electric car market, which has broad growth prospects, will become more competitive in the future.

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