- Nissan is moving forward after the scandal-plagued departure of former CEO and now wanted international fugitive Carlos Ghosn by making significant progress on a global restructuring plan.
- The Japanese manufacturer is on track to accomplish the goals outlined in its “Nissan Next” turnaround plan one year earlier than the target date of March 2024.
- Following nearly a decade of leadership by Ghosn, Nissan Next is a combination of cost-cutting, product investment, and culture reform.
On a prototype of its new all-electric Ariya crossover, Nissan has lighted its logo. The vehicle’s grille reflects Nissan’s Z Proto sports car, while an updated Nissan Pathfinder SUV is seen in the distance.
As it moves past Carlos Ghosn’s scandal-plagued departure, Nissan Motor is making considerable strides in a global restructuring plan to downsize operations and return to profitability.
In a video interview from Nissan’s headquarters in Yokohama, Japan, Gupta, who is in charge of the transformation, said: “Despite the headwinds, we have pulled ahead the recovery by one year.” We are far ahead of schedule compared to what we predicted, which enabled us to weather the pandemic’s headwinds in 2020.
Following almost 20 years under Ghosn, who fled Japan to Lebanon in December 2019 while awaiting trial on allegations of financial wrongdoing, Nissan Next is a blend of cost-cutting, product investment, and culture transformation. Nissan CEO Makoto Uchida outlined the recovery plan as a road map to long-term profitability and “competition for the next ten years.”
The company’s operations are being significantly scaled back in order to place more of an emphasis on higher profits than on Ghosn’s goals of sales volume and growth. Nissan still has a ways to go in terms of profitability, but according to Gupta, there are some encouraging indicators.
Nissan’s 2020 fiscal year, which ends in March, saw a loss of 367.7 trillion Japanese yen ($3.4 billion) through the first three quarters. However, it exceeded its initial objective by 100 billion Japanese yen ($921 million) in the third quarter, producing an operating profit of 27.1 billion Japanese yen ($250 million). Additionally, compared to its earlier plan of 300 billion Japanese yen ($2.8 billion), it has reduced fixed costs by 330 billion Japanese yen ($3 billion).
According to Gupta, cutting fixed costs by closing operations, leaving markets like South Korea, and lowering plant shifts internationally allowed the corporation to arrive ahead of schedule. Other goals of the transformation plan include a 20% reduction in the world’s manufacturing capacity, a tripling of operating profit margin to 5%, and a marginal increase in worldwide market share from 5.8% to 6%.
Analysts are cautiously optimistic that Nissan can turn things around based on the early findings. According to FactSet, the price of Nissan shares listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange has increased by nearly 51% in the past year.
Following the company’s third quarter earnings, Morgan Stanley analyst Kota Mineshima wrote in a letter to investors, “Our impression is generally one of progress.”
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Nissan issues a profit warning as chip shortages become the “new normal.”
Nissan joins a growing list of international companies that are expressing concern over declining profitability as a result of their inability to fully pass on rising input costs to customers and as they prepare for additional supply chain delays as a result of the conflict in the Ukraine and the protracted COVID lockdowns in China.
Unprecedented increases in raw material prices, according to its larger rival Toyota Motor (7203.T), might shave a fifth off the full-year profit. View More
The “uncertain circumstances” surrounding the supply chain, particularly the lockdown in China, is what Uchida referred to as the greatest risk.
Nissan anticipates that sales would increase by 18.7% this fiscal year to 10 trillion yen ($77.6 billion). However, operational profit would only increase by 1% to 250 billion yen, falling short of the mean projection of 318.5 billion yen ($2.5 billion) made by 19 analysts surveyed by Refinitiv.
Nissan Chief Operating Officer Ashwani Gupta stated at an earnings event that the lack of semiconductors is the new normal, just like a pandemic, and that we must adapt to it.
In the fiscal year that began in April, Nissan predicted that raw material and logistical costs would rise by roughly 1.5 times to 212 billion yen, with steel and aluminum accounting for more than half of the increase. It also predicted an increase in logistics costs of an additional 45 billion yen for the current year.
According to chief financial officer Stephen Ma, the company will hedge against price rises and place advance orders for the commodities.
Nissan unveiled its “Ambition 2030” electric vehicle plan; is this a sign that they’re returning to EVs?
With four new concepts, $17 billion in investments over five years (including solid state batteries), and 15 fully electric cars by 2030, Nissan has unveiled a new electrification strategy to usher the firm into the electric future.
Nissan has set goals for its future sales mix in Ambition 2030. Nissan plans to sell 75% “electrified” automobiles in Europe, 55% in Japan, and 40% in China during the following five years (by 2026). Additionally, it aims to achieve a global mix of 50% “electrified” vehicles by 2030, as well as 40% “electrified” vehicles in the US by that time.
In this context, the term “electrification” refers to both hybrid and all-electric vehicles, such as Nissan’s e-Power system. Nissan could not say how many of its “electrified” sales will still be gas-burning poisons.
Nissan unveiled four concepts: Chill-Out, Max-Out, Surf-Out, and Hang-Out, to give an idea of what its potential future electric vehicles would seem. These come in the shapes of a crossover, a low-slung sports convertible, an off-road truck, and a mobile living room with swiveling seats.
Nissan has not said which of them is intended to be a production vehicle, therefore they are all currently simply concepts. But compared to the other two, the Chill-Out and perhaps the Surf-Out appear more plausible.
Nissan has pledged to release 15 new all-electric cars and 8 more new “electrified” models by 2030, regardless of whether these exact concepts are produced (though we’ve seen similar deadlines from other businesses fly by with little action before).
Nissan will invest 2 trillion yen ($17.6 billion) in related programs and increase battery output to 52 GWh by 2026 and 130 GWh by 2030 to make this transition to electrification possible.
The climate crisis, according to Nissan, is “the most serious and intractable issue for the planet today.” In order to do this, it intends to cut production emissions by 40% by 2030 and achieve carbon neutrality for the whole life cycle of all its goods by 2050.
Nissan plans to invest in a plant in Yokohama that will start producing solid-state batteries as early as 2024. Nissan plans to introduce solid state batteries to the market in 2028 with the goal that they will enable higher energy densities and faster charge times. Nissan also claims that solid state batteries would result in reduced costs, but how much less can it be considering that the Leaf is already the least expensive new car in several US states after incentives?
How long will Nissan be closed?
Due to a chip shortage, the Nissan facility will be closed for two weeks. DEARBORN, MI — Nissan claims that due to a scarcity of computer chips brought on by a coronavirus outbreak in Malaysia, its enormous facility in Smyrna, Tennessee, would be closed for two weeks beginning on Monday.
Is Nissan going out of business in India?
Nissan India MD Rakesh Srivastava has formally denied rumors that the company intends to leave the Indian market.
As part of a bigger global transformation strategy, Nissan India, according to Srivastava, is concentrating on its core models and market sectors. The Nissan NEXT program’s first vehicle to be introduced is the Magnite.
In December 2020, Nissan Magnite was introduced. One lakh reservations have been made, and 50,000 units will be produced through March 2022. The chief executive of Nissan India also disclosed that there is a waiting list of 5–6 months for more over 18,000 client orders for the Magnite.
Nissan announced the discontinuation of the Datsun brand in India earlier this month. A member of parliament tweeted in reaction, “Indian operations of Japanese automaker Nissan are to be closed.” This had fueled rumors that the business was leaving the market.
Nissan’s shutdown has a cause.
Since August 16 due to a lack of semiconductors, output at the Smyrna complex, the hub of Nissan production in North America, has been reduced. As automakers get ready for the yearly model switchover and the industry’s autumn production surge, the issue is still very much in the foreground.
Nissan attributes the shortages on the closure of semiconductor manufacturing facilities in Malaysia, where production has been halted as a result of COVID-19’s spread.
The Japanese automaker’s sizable North American production facility is located in the central Tennessee city of Smyrna, which is about 30 miles east of Nashville. The Nissan Rogue, Pathfinder, Murano, Leaf, Maxima, and the brand-new Infiniti QX60 are all built at this plant.
Will Nissan ever return?
Despite the fact that two-seat sports cars aren’t particularly popular, the new Nissan Z is one of the most significant vehicles in the automaker’s recent history since even a car firm requires a soul.
Nissan has experienced some difficult times during the last four to five years. Carlos Ghosn, the former CEO of Nissan, was detained in 2018. An outdated product lineup that was mostly caused by Ghosn’s focus on fleet sales rather than consumer excitement had been hurting the company’s operations. Alfonso Albaisa, the company’s chief designer, expressed his unhappiness with the situation last year. Even Hiroto Saikawa, Nissan’s former CEO, was had to acknowledge in 2019 that the business had “reached rock bottom.”
However, Nissan has been making a comeback by introducing new automobiles like the Pathfinder and Rogue SUVs. The Z, with its emphasis on style and excitement, looks to serve as a sort of spiritual hub for that uprising. When the new Z was unveiled last year, Albaisa told me that designing this new vehicle, which has lines evocative of classic Nissan sports cars, was something that helped the team come together.
Recently, I had the opportunity to drive it on motorways and winding backroads for hundreds of miles. The new Z turned out to be an unexpectedly likeable long-term travel partner, offering genuine comfort during the tediously long stretches but thrill when the route called for it.
Is the Nissan factory closed?
In anticipation of future product launches, Nissan said it will “halt activities at the Decherd powertrain factory.” 400 of its staff will be transferred. Although Infiniti Powertrain was designed to produce up to 250,000 engines annually, at its peak output in 2020, it was only able to operate at 35 percent of capacity.
Nissan Smyrna is it closing?
DEARBORN — Nissan has announced that due to a coronavirus outbreak in Malaysia, its sizable facility in Smyrna would be closed for two weeks starting on Monday.
Since the semiconductor shortage, which has hampered vehicle manufacturing globally, began to take hold in the latter part of last year, the stoppage is among the longest at any American auto plant of this scale.
A COVID-19 outbreak at a Malaysian chip manufacturing caused Nissan to run out of chips, the company reported on Tuesday. On August 30, it anticipates resuming manufacturing.
Six Nissan models are produced in the 6 million-square-foot Tennessee factory, which also employs 6,700 people and is home to the company’s best-selling vehicle in the United States, the Rogue small SUV.
According to analysts, the massive Nissan factory’s two-week stoppage is an indication that the semiconductor scarcity could not be ending as soon as many auto executives had planned for late this year.
The few American facilities that have been closed for two consecutive weeks are typically those that produce sedans or other lower-volume, less lucrative vehicles. Automakers have made an effort to save chips for the factories that produce their best-selling vehicles, primarily SUVs and pickup trucks. However, there have also been periodic closures of pickup vehicle manufacturing facilities, including three General Motors factories this week.
Sam Abuelsamid, principal analyst at Guidehouse Research, stated that Smyrna is a vital manufacturing for Nissan and that its closure indicates that there may not be a quick resolution to the semiconductor shortage.
Supply issues could endure even longer than that, according to Abuelsamid, as COVID-19 infections continue to spread throughout the semiconductor supply chain in Asia and other places.
There is a nationwide shortage of new vehicles as a result of the shortfall, manufacturing closures, and high consumer demand in the U.S. As a result, prices have increased and the used car market has been affected by the lack.
According to Phil Amsrud, senior principal analyst for IHS Markit who monitors the chip business, the chip scarcity is beginning to ease, but the coronavirus delta variant is beginning to cause issues at companies in the semiconductor supply chain, which is aggravating the situation.
Large silicon wafers are divided into numerous smaller integrated circuits by chip foundries in Taiwan and other Asian countries. After that, they are transported to Malaysian “back end” producers where they are subsequently sliced into chips for use in vehicle control computers.
However, as demonstrated by the Nissan stoppage, breakouts among workers in those industries and in the shipping industry are once again hurting supplies. Additionally, he added, the chips automakers are purchasing now could not be suitable for future products.
Amsrud also pointed out that poor immunization rates are common in many nations that handle the back-end jobs, such as Malaysia.
I think we’re basically setting up for Delta to have a footing in all of these places, he said. “I believe delta will continue to give us several issues.”