Nissan bets on AI-defined vehicles: autonomous features to reach 90% of models

Nissan is launching the next phase of its turnaround plan: the company wants to embed autonomous driving functions in 90% of its future vehicles while simultaneously reducing its model lineup by a fifth. The Japanese automaker is betting that software and AI systems will help restore business momentum after a prolonged period of weak results.

What the plan is built on

Nissan's new plan is based on the idea of "AI-defined vehicles." In the company's public formulation, this means that the key value of a car should shift from the number of versions and mechanical differences to software functions, driver assistance systems, and update capabilities. This is an important signal for the market: Nissan wants to compete not only on design, price, and powertrains, but also on how the car behaves on the road and how quickly the manufacturer improves it after the sale.

Nissan CEO Ivan Espinosa directly linked the company's future pivot to autonomous technologies. Based on his statements, the discussion is more about a significant expansion of driver assistance systems than about all vehicles suddenly becoming fully autonomous. Formally, the goal sounds ambitious: autonomous functions should appear in 90% of the company's vehicles in the future. For Nissan, this is an attempt to make AI and software functions not an add-on, but a central part of the product.

Fewer models, more software

At the same time, Nissan plans to cut its model lineup by 20%. For an automaker, this is not just a way to save on marketing or catalogs, but an attempt to reduce the burden on development, production, and supply. The fewer variations it has to maintain, the easier it is to distribute investments among platforms, electronics, and software stacks. This also reduces costs for certification, component procurement, and line maintenance across different markets. Given that developing modern driver assistance systems is expensive, this kind of concentration makes sense.

In practical terms, this approach could give Nissan several advantages:

• faster rollout of new features to mass-market models, not just individual flagships
• reduced engineering complexity and fewer parallel projects
• standardized hardware base for sensors, computing modules, and updates
• reallocation of budget from low-volume models to software development
• simplified explanation of strategy to investors and dealers

"AI-defined vehicles" is the term

Nissan uses to describe its bet on cars where the software increasingly determines everything.

Why the bet is risky

The problem is that the automotive market stopped forgiving half-measures in software long ago. If a manufacturer promises advanced autonomous driving features, users expect stable operation, an understandable interface, and regular updates, while regulators expect predictable system behavior under real-world conditions. This is more complicated than simply adding a new option to the price list. Nissan will have to simultaneously reduce costs, update product logic, and prove that the company is capable of quickly developing the software side of its vehicles.

There is also a strategic risk. Cutting the model lineup helps focus efforts, but at the same time reduces room for error: if the chosen platforms or feature set don't meet market expectations, it will be harder to correct course. Moreover, in the segment of smart vehicles, competition is already taking place not just between traditional automakers, but between teams that can work faster with data, electronics, and post-sale updates. For Nissan, this means that the turnaround plan will be evaluated not by presentations, but by the speed of actual implementation.

What this means

Nissan is trying to restart its business through a narrower lineup and smarter vehicles. If the company truly scales autonomous functions to most of its models, it will be able to regain its role as a technologically significant player. If not, the formula about AI-defined vehicles will remain a nice slogan with no effect on sales.