Nissan Won’t Develop Any More Combustion Engines

In contrast to other Japanese manufacturers, Nissan believes petrol and diesel’s time is up, but it’ll keep offering existing combustion engines depending on market demand

Mike Bartholomew

03 Jun 2024

The car industry is in an interesting place right now, as manufacturers grapple with how to reduce carbon emissions while keeping up with consumer demand, but Nissan has come down firmly in favour of full electrification.

While Mazda, Toyota and Subaru all recently made a joint commitment to develop a new generation of internal combustion engines designed to integrate with electric motors and run on fossil fuel alternatives, Nissan recently confirmed in contrast to this that it's done developing new petrol and diesel engines.

The word came from Francois Bailly, the company’s senior vice president for the Africa, Middle East, India, Europe and Oceania regions, speaking with Australian media. As reported by Drive, Bailly reaffirmed that “our future is EV.”

He went on to refer to Nissan’s e-Power hybrid systems as “a stepping stone” to full electrification, and said that “we’re not investing in new powertrain for ICE, that’s for sure.”

This doesn’t spell the immediate end for petrol-powered Nissans, as the brand will continue to offer cars with its existing engines for the time being, but it does come as confirmation that we won’t see any new combustion engines developed by Nissan, unlike its competitors.

Asked when Nissan planned to drop internal combustion altogether, Bailly refused to offer a hard deadline, stating that it would differ from region to region and be guided by regulations and market demand. The company announced in September 2023 that it would go EV-only in Europe by 2030, and doubled down in November by saying that all its new Euro-market models going forward would be electric. Unlike other brands, it so far hasn’t shown any sign of backtracking on this despite weakening private EV demand.

All of this only lends further credence to the rumours that, if and when an R36 GT-R arrives, it’ll be electric only, and also suggests that the current Z sports car may well be the last with a petrol engine. Nissan's plant in Sunderland, UK, meanwhile, will soon only produce EVs in the form of a third-generation Leaf and electric replacements for the Juke and Qashqai.

The first full sentence spoken by an infant Mike was a review of the ride quality of a Volvo 850. It was “Daddy’s car goes bumpy-bump on a bumpy road,” so would probably need proofreading a bit, but it was a start.