Nissan has said it will add self-driving abilities to the vast majority of its cars and cut a fifth of its models in the latest stage of the Japanese carmaker\u2019s drawn-out turnaround efforts.<\/p>\n
Ivan Espinosa, Nissan\u2019s chief executive, said the company was pinning its hopes on \u201cAI-defined vehicles\u201d, with an aim of installing autonomous driving technologies on 90% of its vehicles in the future.<\/p>\n
The carmaker endured years of turmoil under a succession of bosses. Espinosa took over last year and has set about a painful programme of seven factory closures and 20,000 job losses<\/a> in an effort to cut costs.<\/p>\n On Tuesday he announced at an event at Nissan\u2019s headquarters in Yokohama, Japan<\/a>, that the company would reduce the number of cars it made from 56 to 45 models in order to divert investment to more profitable models.<\/p>\n \u201cOur performance pressures emerge from structural challenges compounding over time,\u201d Espinosa said. \u201cOur portfolio aged faster than the market, costs rose faster than volumes, fixed costs and complexity remain high, even as scale declines.\u201d<\/p>\n Nissan and other traditional carmakers have struggled with the need to invest in new battery electric technologies. Mid-sized Japanese manufacturers in particular have failed to keep up with the pace of change from Chinese manufacturers, who have rapidly become the world\u2019s leading producers of electric cars.<\/p>\n Nissan also revealed its new battery electric Juke, a previously announced crossover SUV to be built in Sunderland, northern England<\/a>. It will play an important part of its electrification plans in Europe<\/a>.<\/p>\n However, Nissan said that its main markets would be Japan, the US and China, and reaffirmed its commitment to hybrids, which combine a petrol engine with a smaller battery. It revealed a new hybrid Rogue SUV (known as the X-Trail in some places) targeted at the US market, where Donald Trump has torn up incentives to shift to electric cars.<\/p>\n