re: Could the Nissan brand be saved in the US?

If those Dodge coupes had come out when I was in my twenties, there's little doubt I would have bought one. As an older man, I just roll my eyes at them. Anything can be ruined if you unleash the right people on it, I suppose.

Hopefully their existence has at least given a few urban scholars good reason to finally junk those awful "G body" cars (Monte Carlos, Cutlasses, etc. of the 1980s). Those things were depressing enough new. Seeing them today is just rage-inducing for me.

I had a Nissan hardbody towards the end of high school and college. I think it was a 1994 IIRC. They were solid little trucks.

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Hopefully their existence has at least given a few urban scholars good reason to finally junk those awful "G body" cars (Monte Carlos, Cutlasses, etc. of the 1980s). Those things were depressing enough new. Seeing them today is just rage-inducing for me.

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I had a Buick Regal in that era.

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I see a lot of big Nissan SUVs on the road like the Armada.

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It's almost like 2 different companies make their products... one for trucks/suv and another for sedans.

The products are worlds apart in value.

Nissan stuck with the same body for the Frontier for like 20 years. Every once in a while they'd throw in some new technology like a touch screen, but it basically stayed the same.

I was interested in the new Frontier when I was in the market for a new truck back in 2021. But dealerships were asking $10k over MSRP at the time.

The Rogue is a great selling suv, probably more of those sold than altimas now. When I worked at Nissan, the Altima was actually a slow seller, with even the Sentra outperforming it. Where Altimas thrive is in the rental category. Enterprise and Hertz buy tons of them and then wholesales them after they've gotten their use out of them. So most Altimas that are retailed are already used. Thus the influx of high mileage pos cars on the road. Nissan is actually cutting the production of Altima shortly, I believe 2025 will be its last year. Maxima is already gone, like Titan. Their flagship car will be the Sentra. They had a terrible plan getting ready to roll out with 25 new brands of EV cars to be introduced worldwide by 2028. I believe they will have to drop back and punt after the American car market has shown that it isn't ready for the EV cars.

Right now, the average age of vehicles on the road is 12 years old, the oldest its ever been. People are just maintaining what they have as opposed to buying new or moving to EV. This government mandate is going to hurt a lot of new car dealers unless it reversed soon. Honda and Toyota were the smartest with their shift to hybrid to attain the necessary fuel consumption numbers that were mandated instead of going all in on EV

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Nah, that QX80 still got the soccer moms lady boners in full rage...

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Especially since you can buy new ones for $18k off sticker right now before the redesign comes out.

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Right now, Nissan has a fleet full of second rate products that sell to people who can't easily get credit. They are often sold by idiots, driven by fools, underinsured, and not maintained at all. They trail far behind their Japanese and American competitors on the used car market for that reason

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You literally just described Kia and Hyundai

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Unless they cancel all their crappy products and bring back the things that people liked, Nissan will eventually become what Mitsubishi was around 2000-2005.

I can't remember the last time I saw a Mitsubishi on the road. They used to be somewhat popular too.

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I have a 2022 G4 Mitsubishi as a daily commuter and it gets 43 MPG and is one of the most reliable cars sold in the US, by all reports comparable to a Corolla. I paid less than $15K for it new. It has no bells and whistles but my 92 mile commute round trip 4 days a week costs about $30 compared to $120 in my truck. They are not well known, dealer network is small, but they are sold all over the world and have a long history of being highly reliable.