Nissan, along with all the other Japanese automakers have been dragging their feet when it comes to electric cars. While Nissan did a good job with developing the LEAF and further evolving it as time moved on, it has not expanded its electric offering in a decade, and only now are we getting a second electric model in the Ariya. However, it looks like Chinese regulations are not allowing this slow effort and it’s rumored that Nissan is electrifying the entire Chinese lineup by 2025.
According to Nikkei, sources are saying that Nissan will all of its models sold in China be available as either fully electric vehicles or hybrids.
The news comes not too long after China’s new plan for 2035 which looks to have 50% of new cars sold in the country be either electric, plug-in hybrid, or fuel cell vehicles, and 50% of new cars will be conventional hybrids. Along with this plan, regular hybrids have been reclassified as “fuel-efficient vehicles” by the government which will make it easier for automakers to reach their required quotas.
According to the source, Nissan will introduce a total of nine cars to the Chinese market that will be electrified. We will see Nissan’s ‘e-power’ conventional hybrid system in 5-6 of the new models with at least one of them being fully electric in the Ariya that we recently saw.
Nissan is looking to increase the ratio of electric car sales in China from 2% in 2018 to 23% in 2023. To help with this, the Japanese automaker is expanding its production capacity by starting operations in Changzhou, Jiangsu Province, this year, and in Wuhan, Hubei Province next year. The combined facility expansion will boost production by 30% to 2 million units.
While the news looks good at a glance, the fact that the majority of cars rumored to be introduced will still be regular hybrids means that Nissan will still have a long way to go to be truly electrified.
As always, nothing is official from Nissan at this point so take the news with a grain of salt.
