April 16, 2026 | Nissan CEO Ivan Espinosa on turnaround strategy; EVs plunge in February

Welcome to Daily Drive.

For Thursday, April 16, 2026, I'm Kellan Walker in Las Vegas.

Today on the show, EV registrations tumble farther in February.

Ford's Doug Field is leaving the company, and Stellantis hires a Hyundai Veteran to

boost U.S. sales.

Plus, Nissan CEO Yvonne Espinoza talks about his vision for the company's future, including

deploying AI-driven autonomous technology across most of the lineup.

We started with a few products already.

Four products have been launched with this philosophy.

We see good traction, and we will continue investing in the same way for the future.

Let's run through all the news you need to know to keep up in the auto industry.

New electric vehicle registrations dropped 37% in February compared to last year.

That brings EV share below 5% for the first time since federal tax credits disappeared

last fall.

According to S&P Global Mobility, Tesla is still winning.

But even they're down 22%.

One bright spot, Toyota, which saw registrations jump 77% by throwing big incentives at buyers,

Motor Intelligence says they averaged more than $12,000 per vehicle on their BZ crossover.

We'll have more on this story in a minute with our own Laurence Iliff.

Doug Field is leaving Ford next month.

Ford brought Field in from Apple and Tesla back in 2021 to help turn the company into

a modern software-driven automaker.

Field's departure comes as Ford reshuffles its leadership.

The company is combining its EV teams with its traditional engineering operations under

COO Kumar Galholtra, all in a push to move faster as it preps a wave of new vehicles.

CEO Jim Farley praised Field for teaching the company first principles thinking.

Field says his job is done.

He says Ford has a winning tech strategy and that crucial new electric pickup is headed

to production.

And Stalantis is bringing in some fresh talent to turn around its US sales slump.

The automaker just hired Michael Orange away from Hyundai, where he'd spent nearly two

decades climbing the ranks.

Most recently, he was Vice President of National Sales, helping Hyundai hit record volume.

Orange starts April 22nd as Senior Vice President of US Sales and Network Performance.

He'll report directly to CEO Antonio Filosa.

His mission?

Boost retail sales, repair relationships with frustrated dealers, and help Stalantis

claw back market share.

The company's aiming for a 25% jump in US retail sales this year.

And those are today's headlines.

You can find more details on all those stories at AutoNews.com.

Here to talk about falling EV registrations is our own Lawrence Isliff, who covers Tesla

and other EV brands for us at Automotive News.

Lonnie, welcome back to Daily Drive.

It's great to be here.

All right Lonnie, so the EV tax credits have been gone for months, why is share still

falling?

I think we're kind of in this weird place in the EV market where before we had the consumer

tax credit, $7,500, and then there were all these automaker pressures, right?

They had to meet fuel economy standards, emissions standards, right?

And so everybody was kind of racing to get EVs in people's hands, and the market became

pretty distorted.

Now the $7,500 is gone as of September 30th, and the emissions are also gone, and the fuel

economy standards are not being enforced anymore.

And so people don't have that much reason to buy EVs anymore, unless they really want

one.

So we're getting to kind of more organic demand, both on the consumer side and on the automaker

side.

Because remember, the automakers are still putting money into the EVs that they want

to sell in the form of incentives.

So it's not kind of a pure consumer demand.

It's kind of a natural demand between the automakers and the consumers.

And as a result, you know, a lot of automakers have said, you know, I don't really want to

do this.

I'm losing money.

I'm going to kill some models.

And then I'm going to come back later with a different platform, right?

And so you see some automakers down 90%, 80%, 70%.

Those are big names, Honda, Nissan, Volkswagen, and they're kind of, you know, pulling out.

Meanwhile, there are some winners, you know, there are some companies that are still fighting

out there.

Tesla is still doing pretty well.

They're down, you know, 22%, 23%.

But you know, they're kind of the Kleenex of EVs.

If you want a EV, you've got to kind of put Tesla on your buying list, even if you don't

buy one, right?

And so, you know, GM brought out a lot of models, so that's keeping their numbers positive.

Hyundai was just about flat plus 2%.

They have some good deals.

And so kind of the market's shaking at everybody's saying it's a transition phase.

It's a step change.

It's, you know, going from, you know, one market to a completely different market.

And we're kind of in the middle of it.

Now, analysts think 5% to 8% is where EV market share will settle without tax credits.

What does this tell us about where the industry goes from here?

I think it says that, you know, a lot of the progress we made up until, you know, the tax

credit went away where share went up, you know, basically from, you know, kind of near

zero earlier this decade to about 8%, you know, by mid 2025 that we're going down, right,

to, it was about 4.8% in February.

And then there's some numbers from Cox Automotive for the first quarter that said 5.8%, right?

So we kind of went down.

We lost some ground.

And now we're coming back up to that 8%, you know, according to analysts, that's kind

of where we'll get, but we'll kind of be stuck at that 8% until, you know, we see some new

models, we see some more affordable models, we see some charging, we see some education,

we kind of break through some of those barriers to adoption, but it's going to take some time.

And I think, you know, when I talk to people, they're not sure when they think maybe 2027

is going to be better.

Perfect.

Lonnie, always insightful.

Thank you so much for joining me.

Thank you very much.

Coming up, Nissan CEO, Yvonne Espinoza joins us for an exclusive interview to discuss his

turnaround strategy.

That's next on Daily Drive.

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Welcome back to Daily Drive.

I'm Kellan Walker.

Nissan CEO Yvonne Espinoza is wrapping up his first year leading the automaker.

A year marked by major restructuring that included closing seven plants globally, but

Espinoza says the company is ready to move beyond turnaround mode.

He spoke with Automotive News Asia editor Hans Grimel about his vision for Nissan, including

plans to deploy AI-driven autonomous driving technology across 90% of the lineup, streamline

the global product portfolio, and return to one million U.S. sales by 2031.

This is Hans Grimel, the Asia editor from Automotive News.

I'm with Nissan CEO Yvonne Espinoza, who is just wrapping up his first year as company

boss.

He was appointed CEO last year and he took the office on April 1st, I believe, of 2025.

In that first year on the job, you had to go through quite an experience of restructuring

the company.

And you're now still in the first year of the three-year rollout plan.

Tell us about the hardest decisions that you made in that first year.

Well, the most difficult decision, as you said, was around the restructuring.

So, first of all, we came out with a clear plan, which is release and which is a two-year

program.

So, we immediately, after I was appointed into the office, we analyzed, I knew the situation

already because I've been working in the executive committee before being appointed CEO.

So, I knew, together with some of the leaders, what had to be done.

So, we very quickly put in place the plan.

And within this plan, there were three pillars.

One was costs, the other was product and market strategy, and the third one was partnerships.

And within the cost pillar, we had viable cost efforts we had to do with how can we

make our viable costs of our cars more competitive by changing the standards, changing the way

we spec and build cars.

And the difficult part was fixed costs.

There was a big restructuring that had to be made.

And those are the factories that you're talking about, right?

That's the, exactly.

That was the most difficult part of the decisions that had to be made.

The fact that we had to close or move from 17 to 10 plants, 7 plants, yeah, 7 plants

were or are going to be shot effectively.

So, we had locations like Argentina, we had Campas and Coronavacca in Mexico, we had India,

we had Oparma.

Quite a lot of hard decisions to make there, and that brings us to today where it's not

really an update on the restructuring plan or the extension of this restructuring plan.

You're kind of looking out beyond that to kind of give a corporate vision as what you're

calling here, to tell us about the main points of this vision.

Today you said it's not a restructuring plan, it's not the next turnaround plan, it's something

beyond that.

What do you mean?

Right.

It's not a turnaround plan.

Renice is a turnaround plan.

It's a plan that will create the foundation, give us the right cost structure, the right

footprint in order to build the next layer of strategy, which is what we announced today.

And it's a strategy that is founded on a clear vision of bringing mobility intelligence

to everyday's life.

What we mean by that is bringing technologies that are human-centric to our customers, that

are accessible.

We want to move into a positioning that is being accessible and progressive.

And if I hit at some of the points here, you want to deploy, for example, artificial intelligence-driven

automated driving systems across 90% of your product portfolio in the long term.

We don't have it.

You didn't actually specify a time frame for that, but long term could be five, ten years

maybe.

And also you're going to try to contest the global power lineup and expand the powertrain

offerings at each name flag.

What's the thinking behind that?

How much are you condensing the global lineup and what do you expect to achieve by doing

that?

So on AI, so as I was mentioning, the vision is to bring mobility intelligence.

And this intelligence is founded on AI as one of a core areas.

And within AI, we will have autonomous-based technology based on AI, which is the AI driver.

And we will have also AI-based experiences in the car, which is the AI partner.

So AI will be the enabler for all the technology that we will be bringing to our customers

in the mid to long term.

As you said, we're aiming to 90% of our lineup to be offering these AI autonomous technology

in the future.

And we will gradually deploy.

We're starting with the AL Grand here in Japan in 2027.

And after that, we will gradually deploy that technology across the different markets in

the world.

So this is one part of the strategy.

The other part is bringing more efficiency and throughput of the nameplates that we have.

So what we will do is today we have 56 products in the lineup.

We want to reduce that to 45.

We have many products that are elongated cars that are not bringing a lot of value to the

company.

So we have decided that every car in the lineup needs to have a very clear role and a clear

mission.

And those that don't have that will be gradually removed from the lineup.

With this, we will bring our total portfolio from 56 to 45, which will make our investments

more efficient.

So we will be focusing more investment per car that will make them more attractive, having

more character and being more competitive.

And when we do that, we will be able of expanding the volume per nameplate.

One example of how we do that is by investing on more powertrain choices within the same

car.

Today, many of our cars, most of them, only have one powertrain option.

So today we have many, many engines in our menu, let's say, or the technology shelf

that we have, but each engine is applied to one car.

So we are having a lot of diversity and we are not providing enough customer choice.

So what we want to do is to reduce the number of diversity, have fewer engines on the shelf,

but use these engines in more cars.

So with this, we bring efficiency on the development of powertrain and we provide more customer

choice.

And by offering more customer choice, we expect the volume per nameplate to increase.

And among the powertrains that you're talking about, it seems that you're really emphasizing

when it comes to the United States market, the V6 engines and the V6 hybrid, which is

a new offering really in the lineup here.

What can you tell us about those two engine variants and how you might use them in the

United States?

Because we do think there's still demand for competitive ICE powertrains.

One example is the V6 that you just mentioned.

We will continue investing in e-power because this is at the center of our strategy because

it's a bridge between today hybrid market and the future of EV, both from a customer

standpoint, but also from an industrial standpoint because there's a lot of commonality between

the e-power components and the electric vehicle components, like the e-motor, inverter and

the reducer gear.

So in the future, when the demand starts shifting to EV, it's very easy for Nissan to move into

EV from an e-power investment that we have already done.

And then the last part is what you're saying.

So V6 hybrid, so V6 and V6 hybrid will come in the new family of products that we are

calling the frame family.

Nissan will be moving in the future to having three families in the lineup.

These three families will basically add up for the 80% of the volume, total volume of a company.

These three families will start with the frame family that will come in 2028 in North America.

We will also be having a compact family that will start in Japan, also around the same timing.

And there's a third family that we are not announcing today, but it will be basically

sitting in between those two.

So slightly larger than the compact and slightly smaller than the frame.

And this frame family will be bringing these V6 and V6 hybrid parts.

That's great.

One thing that really stood out in today's presentation was that you said you gave actually

some sales targets, kind of maybe long-term sales targets for the fiscal year that ends in

March 31st, 2031.

So it's about five years out, but you want to hit one million, return to one million sales in the

United States by that time.

I think that's the last time you hit around or we're at one million was in 2019, I believe.

What makes you think you can get there in this kind of current environment?

Is it because you expect the overall market to go up as well?

Or what are the dynamics that are going to drive you back to one million?

I think it's a combination hands.

We have a very strong dealer network that is needing more product.

So when we bring the right product, organically, the volume should grow.

The other thing that we're doing also is, and it's part of the strategy today, we're moving from

relying in the past.

There were years in the past that around 30% of Nissan's volume in North America was coming from

fleets and rentals.

So we are reducing that.

There's a healthy fleet volume that we can expect in the order of 11, 12%,

but we're trying to stay at that level.

And the rest of the sales, we want to focus on retail buyers.

And the reason to do that is retail buyers stick with the brand.

So these are customers that first you can sell at a higher price.

And there are customers that are more prone to rebuy the brand.

And there are customers that are also bringing value, not only in the new car sale,

but also in the sales finance part of the business.

So you're targeting like high 80% of retail share.

Right.

And where are you today in the United States?

Today we're cruising 85%.

Yeah, you're almost there.

Yeah, we're almost there.

So when you look at the total sales, we are, I would say, flat-ish versus last year.

So year-over-year, we're flat.

But the volume inside is much healthier than what it was one year before.

So we are reducing the reliance on fleets and rentals and capitalizing a lot more on retail.

And another thing we talked earlier about as well was the idea that

volume at Nissan has been maybe the weak point here.

The rest of the pieces of your recovery plan or revival plan are falling into place,

but still volume keeps sliding.

But you really need to turn it around.

When we look at the current fiscal year that just started here in April 1st,

and goes through next March, what do you expect in terms of volume increase there?

You mentioned that this might be the year to actually turn things around.

You're predicting maybe it is going to bottom out and rebound.

Yeah, I think 2026, I have no number to give you now

because we will be announcing our business plan in a few weeks.

But we expect this year to, this FY26 to start turning back on the volume.

I think there's opportunity for us in Japan.

It's up, there's opportunity for us to continue the good trend in the U.S.

And also to continue the good trend in China with the new products that we're rolling out

that were designed and engineered and manufactured in China.

We started with a few products already.

Four products have been launched with this philosophy.

We see good traction and we will continue investing in the same way for the future.

Come back tomorrow for a conversation with Matias Stover, founder and CEO of Automotive

Training Company, RockEd, about the need to train service advisors.

We'd love to hear from you.

Let us know what you think of the show and the topics we cover today.

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April 16, 2026 | Nissan CEO Ivan Espinosa on turnaround strategy; EVs plunge in February

About this episode

EV registrations tumble farther in February

EV share below 5%

Tesla

big incentives at buyers

averaged more than $12,000 per vehicle

Ford

Doug Field

modern software-driven automaker

combining its EV teams with its traditional engineering operations

Hyundai

market share

EV tax credits

organic demand

EV incentives

kill some models

Nissan

Kleenex of EVs

GM

Cox Automotive

barriers to adoption

AI-driven autonomous driving technology

product and market strategy

cost structure

footprint

product portfolio

gradually removed from the lineup

e-motor

inverter

EV

fleet volume

bottom out and rebound

designed and engineered and manufactured in China

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