Nissan’s masterplan: 6 new cars by 2026, including next-gen Micra, Leaf successor and revamped Juke,

Nissan has started to chart its course to the future, the Japanese brand has announced its plans to unveil no fewer than 30 new models worldwide by 2026, including 6 for Europe. Of these upcoming models, 16 will feature electrified powertrains, aligning with Nissan’s commitments to sustainability. Notably, the brand has already stated its intention to launch only new fully electric cars in Europe and the UK.

The Nissan Micra will be the first new model on the horizon, due to share much of its technology with the Renault 5 E-Tech that was unveiled just under a month ago. The Micra should be revealed before the year is out and Nissan will also be introducing the next iteration of the Juke small SUV as well as completely new Leaf, which is expected to take the form of a crossover.

Nissan hopes that EVs will be responsible for 40% of sales by 2026, however, CEO and President, Makoto Uchida, stated that the firm’s aim is to introduce the third-generation of the hybrid e-Power technology in Europe by 2026, too. This new technology would provide a 20 per-cent cut in cost, 10 per-cent increase in fuel efficiency and up to 20 per-cent more power when compared to the previous version. He also went further to state that this will allow the brand to achieve a cost consistency between pure-petrol and hybrid cars by 2026, closing the current cost gap.

Uchida also took the time to say that Nissan will continue to work with Ampere, Renault Group’s EV-dedicated company, on future electric cars, including a compact EV.

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In parallel to this, Nissan is pushing forward with battery development, with the current goals being to reduce the charging time by half and make the batteries 50% more energy dense by 2028. This will be achieved through enhancement of the nickel-cobalt-manganese (NCM) lithium-ion batteries currently being used by the Nissan Ariya. Additionally, the brand is engineering its version of LFP (lithium ferro phosphate) batteries, similar to the ones found on the Citroen e-C3, which should appear in the same time scale.

To streamline production Nissan is going to build a single platform on which five of the new cars will be based, all of them developed “together as a family,” according to the CEO. Having a unified platform to base your vehicles on will allow for the same body components to be shared across a range of many different body styles. 

As per Uchida's explanation, once the first vehicle is ready, this streamlined approach will result in a significant cost reduction of up to fifty per-cent and a reduction in development time by four months for each of the remaining four vehicles. The production of the inaugural model utilising this novel platform and methodology is stated to commence in 2027.