By KBC Associate 
It’s only Wednesday, but it has been a hell of a week for Nissan. Confirming some of our worst fears, the troubled Japanese automaker is axing as many as 20,000 jobs and shuttering seven factories. To slow down the hemorrhaging of money after losing $4.5 billion over the past year, the Yokohama-based company has taken an unusual step: it has paused the development of some new cars.
Without revealing which vehicles are affected, Nissan says work on “advanced and post-FY26 product activities” has been suspended. For reference, Japan’s fiscal year 2026 runs from April 1, 2026, through March 31, 2027. During this pause, approximately 3,000 people from the R&D team have been reassigned to “focus on cost reduction initiatives.”
As bad as this sounds, Nissan suggests that the rollout of these new cars might not be delayed. The company is optimizing development by reducing the time it takes to bring a next-gen vehicle to market from 52 to 37 months. Subsequent derivatives will take just 30 months instead of 50. To achieve this, it’s eliminating no fewer than six platforms, bringing the total down to only seven. Better standardization will also help reduce parts complexity by as much as 70 percent.
In this new era of development at Nissan, the first models to launch will be a global compact crossover and a similarly sized model, possibly U.S.-focused, under the Infiniti badge. But the vehicle we’re most curious to see is the new Skyline, though it could end up as another sedan, or worse, an SUV. That wouldn’t be the first time, considering the Skyline Crossover was sold in Japan from 2009 to 2016.
Still, Nissan’s situation is worrying. This week’s press release contains the word “cost” 17 times, and the document isn’t even that long. Efforts to bring new models to market while cutting expenses will include leaning more heavily on its alliance with Renault and Mitsubishi. Honda remains part of the strategy, though only as a partner in developing electrified models and technology. There are no plans to restart merger talks.
All these initiatives are bundled under the “Re:Nissan” banner, which the company candidly describes as a recovery plan.