Episode 218: Nissan SVP Global Design Alfonso Albaisa
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The automobile is one of the most important inventions that revolutionized the modern world.
In America, the rich history of car culture runs deep as technology continues to shape the future of the industry.
Jason Stein is here to share the stories of people passionate about cars from industry leaders and innovators to car-obsessed celebrities.
Buckle up as Jason takes you inside the boardroom, onto the track, and around the bend on Cars and Culture on SiriusXM Business Radio.
Welcome to Episode 218 on Cars and Culture, SiriusXM Business Channel 132.
I'm your host, Jason Stein. Great to have you along for the ride again this week.
Today, we take you to moderate car week and one of its crown jewels, the Quail, a motorsports gathering.
It's the stage where the world's most imaginative designs and boldest concepts are revealed.
And in 2025, Infiniti, Nissan's luxury division, used that stage to debut the QX-65 monograph.
A coupe-style crossover concept, the QX-65 was described as feeling production ready and for good reason.
It's a striking preview of Infiniti's next chapter with the production version expected in 2026.
While Nissan itself didn't have a high-profile debut at the Quail,
the company maintained a strong presence throughout moderate car week,
allowing its senior vice president for global design to tell a bigger story about the brand's creative direction.
And that leader is Alfonso Albaiza.
For more than three decades, he has shaped the DNA of Nissan and Infiniti,
guiding everything from the GT-R to the Aria, and now the concepts that signal their EV future and beyond.
His design language blends emotion, heritage, and a bold vision for what lies ahead.
At the Quail, we sat down to talk about the QX-65 monograph and Infiniti's design renaissance,
as well as Nissan's evolving place in the electrified era.
Coming up on Cars & Culture, my conversation with Nissan's global design chief Alfonso Albaiza from moderate car week.
Hi, my name is Alfonso Albaiza. I'm head of design for Nissan and Infiniti.
I'm here with my friend Jason Stein of Cars & Culture.
And we're at the Quail. We've been here ten times or so.
Yeah, exactly. Yeah.
It's lovely today.
It is great to be with you again the last time that I saw you.
We were on the streets of Miami, and we were actually going through your old neighborhood.
We saw your father's original workplace. We went by your childhood home.
It was an emotional experience, I think, for both of us, and we were in your brand-new car, your Nissan Z.
So the question is, where do we take the QX-65 now that will be the same kind of significance for you while we're in California?
Well, we should go back to Miami.
Yes, to a nationwide road trip.
Another road trip that was spectacular. Thank you again for that.
Just like what you do connecting the cars to the culture at large,
I think it's even our own personal culture.
I don't think we can separate that.
We all have memories of why we love cars and why, in my case, why I design cars.
So the journey on the Z really took me back because it was when I first saw a Jagi-type in my dad's office.
And that sense of natural beauty, that sense of effortless, I really wanted to make the Z a bit like that.
So thank you again.
No, thank you. It was memorable.
So here we sit. It's wonderful to come back every year, and very grateful to be here with Nissan Infinity.
But we sit at the epicenter of car culture here, and we've been saying this on this program for the last three or four years,
that there is perhaps no other place in the industry currently where all of those worlds meld together.
And that now is also industry, and it is consumer, and it is collector, and it is culture, and it's all of these things.
And perhaps as autoshows have waned, the quail, Hevel Beach has filled the void.
That's what I surmise to be the situation with.
I completely agree. The motor shows have vanished. There's been attempts.
Vanished. That's a good word.
New York stays in the game, but it's smaller, and probably fewer big stories happening.
And here the beauty is this, where you have people who are collectors mingling with journalists and dealer body owners and designers.
And in a context where the cars could not look better than they do.
And it's a celebration of multiple days.
Racers.
We were running GTRs.
Right.
Two, three years ago, when we did the Italian GTR with the tile design, 800 horsepower.
And I had never really had a time when the day I see a car for the first time as a physical thing,
and then be on a corkscrew, where my heart jumped out of my ears, which is not the direct path out of the body.
So this all happens here.
Yeah. And it's changing, and I think there's a momentum that is perhaps more organic than anything else,
because of other situations and circumstances that is pushing everybody to the same place now.
And that there is this energy and drive that you have to be here.
This is where the car world is centered for a week, perhaps now even longer.
It's now no longer just moderate car week, but it's now more like 10 days.
So what do you gain from spending time here from a design standpoint?
Do you wander along the lawn here at the quail and pick up a couple of cues?
Are you looking for subtle changes that maybe you can't see on a screen somewhere?
And even the yes, and all the perfection.
And even though you've seen the cars, a lot of these cars I've seen various times.
But time changes everything.
Where you might see something in a slightly different way, and it inspires you or gives you energy.
At the end of the day, without energy inspiration, all it cannot be leveraged.
You just get excited. The beauty is exciting.
And then you see things and then you meet people and the light turns and you feel like I'm a shape guy.
And this is about shape here. There's some Bertones.
They have shape too.
I mean the angular ones I love by the way.
And the boomerang in college was one of my...
The boomerang happened when I was my teens.
And it's just a celebration of design.
And I'm a judge, honorary judge.
And to hear the stories of the owners, they chase these cars.
Decades sometimes.
Before they find what they're really looking for.
And sometimes it's one car.
So they're chasing one car, watching it change hands.
And I don't know what other world has that.
What other industry or what...
I mean I guess the art world would probably have this as well.
It's becoming ten days.
When you and I went through your old streets in Miami, the world was a different place.
I don't know what your world in the last eight months has looked like.
But how does chaos influence design?
That is a profound question because one would say that designer is a bit unstable already.
Generally.
Like even myself I was so painfully introverted as a child that I just dreamed all day long.
Because that was the easiest thing.
And then you go to art school and you find out that you were not alone.
There's a lot of people a lot like you.
And that has a...
And you're unstable in that sense.
And you leap.
When you're stable you don't...
This instability I think naturally is good for designers.
But it's now happening in many ways.
So it's no longer a personal instability.
It's all the markets, it's the politics.
It's our company, by the way.
There's many self-inflicted situations.
We have a new CEO.
Yes.
Again?
Yes.
And it's exciting.
You know, from the outside I don't know if people can understand what happens when you have a new CEO.
It's probably a good story anyway.
And you've had a few of them.
I've had a few of them and you had some dramatic ones.
You had some very dramatic ones.
And change is good.
Who left in dramatic fashion.
Yes, change is destabilizing, but it also is rebirth.
And you have license to reinvent yourself.
And you should always consider change as an opportunity to be a different person yourself.
And so as a designer right now, I'm in a point where I'm like trying to think about all my sacred cows.
How many do I do?
How many am I nurturing, which I shouldn't do?
Infinity and Nissan are important brands for many, many millions of people as a group.
And they want us to survive from the self-inflicted stuff.
And they want us to survive the geopolitical things.
From external events that are influencing.
So we're getting all these...
You have internal change occurring at the same time as you have massive external change.
And you have sacred cows and product programs that have the pain coming from both sides as well.
I've been a collaborator of Ivan Espinosa, our new CEO, for a long time.
And Guillaume Cartier, which is our CPO, is our performance officer.
And Jeremy Papin is CFO now.
He was an head of NNA.
So I know these.
I have continuity of relationship.
But it's understood completely that we need to almost not know each other.
I need to be of value to them to find new ways because old ways didn't work.
And it's exciting and stressful at the same time.
China, we didn't talk so much about...
I'm not talking about tariffs.
I'm talking about the processes they have developed in China to make a beautiful car.
So probably when people think, oh, you're going to reduce the schedule of a car by half,
you would think that's not going to be a nice car.
No, that's going to be among the most beautiful cars in the world.
And invention and stuff like that.
And to witness that and want to advocate that this is one of the secrets for our longevity.
We have two programs right now.
I mean, I have seven that I've developed in China in the last sense.
We saw each other.
Wow.
Seven programs.
But they're just starting to launch now.
And seven, which was developed in 26 months or something like that.
Full sketch to build.
And we're doing some a little bit less than that in China.
And now I'm excited we're taking that with Yvonne.
Because Yvonne and me were part of it.
Right, right, right.
And so yeah, all this crazy stuff's happening.
But we see each other and we know what we can do as a company.
And that that what we can do is directly linked to doing it for 100 years more.
So yeah, crazy times.
But there is a goal.
Are you taking more risks with design?
I'm sitting here at the quail looking at this gorgeous QX 65 that's in front of us.
That is edgy and daring and different and might even look like some much more aggressive versions of infinity going forward.
Yeah.
Because of the circumstances that have occurred internally or now externally,
do you take more chances with design in order to show the world that we're here to make a statement
and we are not going to be what we were.
So do you push the departure point or the, do you push the edges in order to attract more interest?
What is happening, which I think is a great question you're asking me,
is I want Yvonne to feel like he had fired me and he hired a guy that happens to have the same name but is not.
My value to him and to the new company is to look at everything from a view from outside.
Yeah.
I felt that for infinity, and some of this you're seeing a little bit,
but you're going to see more of it, is that our artistry was a bit narrow.
It was nice. People liked designs.
They were not selling a lot, but in all the surveys, people were positive.
But we need to be much more outstanding.
I'm challenging the team that art is not just a fluid, appealing shape.
Art can be square, art can be a triangle, art can be anything.
We have to really make our brand stand out even in the dark.
So that's the mission that we're on right now.
Even, you know, we just launched a QX80.
It's quite popular, but we've got a race version and we got one from completely off the road.
It's part of this world with Premcar, partnership Australian group.
They took over.
They did a car.
We're letting partners shape us and inspire us.
And then back to the 65, you know, infinity, when it was really at its best, they were invented.
So, 1998-ish, if you think about what was happening in the world, I think the BMW X5 just launched.
That's right.
It's probably the first premium SUV to roam.
And it was a lovely car.
Yes.
Very successful.
You would think, back to the inspiration, we got to make one like that.
Right.
That's cool.
But that's not what happened.
I was director at the time.
Part of my job in the U.S. was to vote on cars that are coming for the U.S.
I had nothing to do.
And this is, I'm old.
There was no email, no servers.
You wrote a letter to somebody.
Somebody, I received a package.
A package of FedEx or something.
Right.
And then I opened up and there's photos.
And it was a cool-looking object.
And there were three of them.
The last one looked like an egg had swallowed an aircraft carrier.
And it was the one that I wanted to vote.
It was a new invention.
Like, yes, you can tell it's the genre of the X5.
It's a two-row SUV that has a refinement level of a passenger vehicle.
But it was such a unique thing.
And when the project came up,
where we were building a car off the QX-60,
it starts to have the footprint of the FX.
And we went after it.
And the difference is, as you're saying, the FX was very clean, actually.
Because at that time it was so arresting as a proportion.
It was.
It was incredibly memorable.
All around the place.
The quail and the concourse used to be about a celebration of history.
Right.
It's not.
Right.
As many cars are from the past, we have cars from tomorrow coming.
So just to do an FX the same way wouldn't have really worked.
So the QX-65 is not an FX.
But we wanted that feeling, that sensuality.
And kind of a little bit of bad-ass nature of the hood.
Exactly bad-ass.
Yes.
But at the end of the day it's a kind of velvety.
And somehow this is a piece of sculpture you want to wash.
You want to somehow touch.
And the color, twilight is this satin.
Beautiful color.
Dark red, merloish.
Maroonish, burgundy wine color.
Spectacular.
We did a concept car called the QE, which was an EV.
Which again is part of the changes that five years ago we thought the whole world might
now we would all have things changing.
But one of the things I loved about that car was a Brancusi sculpture, bird and flight
has this beautiful shape.
And I turned it sideways.
And the tail of a bird, those last feathers are just perfectly sharp and aligned.
I hope you feel that on the rear of that.
The tail lamp is really not part of the body.
It's separating.
Yes.
Becoming a blade.
Right.
And this kind of thing is, of course it's an airplane type of inspiration.
But an airplane is inspired by a bird.
Exactly.
So it's that kind of thing.
So that's a bit what we have.
People call it a kind of coup-ish thing.
Right.
But if you really look at the centerline of that car.
Yes.
It's actually not.
Yeah.
It's not a swoopy car.
Right.
Right.
Not at all.
It's just the DLO has that aircraft carrier swallowed by an egg that I'm still loving that.
You have taken on some bold projects and you took on some traditional, I mean we
referenced the Z earlier, an icon, an absolute icon.
Where are you with Infiniti trying to push the brand now?
And maybe let me ask it this way.
You've, on the Nissan side, you've had these mega brands that you've had to shepherd through.
What does Infiniti stand for?
Where do you want it to be when we look back on it a decade from now?
Well, the elasticity of art I really want.
I'm a bit obsessed right now.
I know I touched on it a moment ago.
Yeah.
But I felt that we're not really shocking people enough.
There's a beautiful thing.
Right.
And I love this.
To be avant-garde, I think is our only meaning to exist.
Yeah.
The company launched with like a river, with river stones, and even the dealer experience
was so different from back then.
Mercedes and BMW and Audi, they were king of the roost, I'm not sure the word is.
Yes.
There was no need for a Japanese premium car and Lexus and Infiniti.
Of course, I compliment them on their journey.
Our journey was not to bring something completely different.
And that's why I'm telling the story, because I feel that has an avant-garde sense.
Yes.
Where you want to change the formulas that exist.
So I really want to take this moment of chaos and instability and ask our designers,
what is avant-garde for Infiniti?
And interesting stuff, boxy, really boxy things.
Premcar is really excited about, because of the link to the patrol that the QX80 has.
Right.
That really, we don't show the limit of what that car can actually do.
Yeah.
And that's why I'm excited.
So one side is how we market it.
The other side is really how the designers really stretch it.
Don't get complacent, a sacred cow type of thing, back to our CEO.
So I'm excited about that.
I love digital art.
I think digital art, new minimalism with digital art and all of this stuff.
Autonomous is nuts.
I've been driving some cars in China that is a bit unbelievable.
But I think there's still more change coming.
And I think Infiniti should be right in the middle of that.
How does what's occurred specifically here in the United States as it relates to EVs more recently,
change the trajectory of a designer who is constantly looking out five, six, seven years?
Yeah.
Because this is the epitome of chaos.
It's a pendulum that is swinging this way when all of this time and effort is put into propulsion systems that are different.
And the concepts, you and I talked about this last time in Miami,
what you can envision when you have a propulsion system that's changed
or when the parameters change.
Well, they've changed again.
So do you just kind of go back to the design room and go, well...
Agility.
I think that we are...
It's a word, it's an old word.
Agility, of course.
You have to be.
But it's really now.
And it's linked to this very short process that we cannot allow.
Power trains take a long time.
So we need to develop a few different types of power trains to understand where the world is really going to go.
But on the design side, we cannot be a roadblock for change and engineering.
Design and engineering.
We need to be able when the company has clarity on what we're going to do
and we should be involved in that.
We should say, hey, world is changing.
Something weird is happening in the U.S.
and there is a little bit of a resistance.
It's organic.
It's not that someone said, hey...
No.
It bubbled, started feeling, got louder and louder.
The cars were waiting on them.
Right.
But the technology is still good.
So it's not like you're walking away.
But then we go and talk to the bosses and say, there's a new vibe.
And don't pretend that it's just a Nissan vibe.
This is a vibe that's going to be for infinity.
It needs to be a player.
A little bit more analog.
Yeah.
Seeing this happening.
I don't know.
It's not just a EV.
It's probably a feeling that in the U.S. people are having to all these technologies that are
supposed to make your life easier.
But in fact, you're causing people to stumble over some things that were probably basic.
And they don't want you changing that.
So we...
I don't know if job security is too snarky, but it is interesting that...
Okay, we got to rethink all this.
Yeah.
We got this new thing we got to do.
Yeah.
There is no end to the work.
Yeah.
Evolution is not linear.
That's right.
And we have to change constantly.
So it's a combination.
Power trains, apprehension.
Hybrids seem to not be affected.
Right.
They seem to be a safe haven for people's doubt.
Yeah.
But in fact, the ICE cars in the U.S., the trucks and stuff like that, which is part of our
DNA on the Nissan side.
Yeah.
But I think that more and more, you're going to see this sense of frame.
The Kearrax 80 is a frame.
Yeah.
That is velvetized.
I don't know if that's a word.
Yes.
And I'm hungry not to shed some of the velvet and to challenge really what is the experience
of luxury is not velvet.
Right.
To go back to that.
Right.
So it's exciting.
As I mentioned, how much tech does it have to be there or not?
Do you see design becoming less technically or interior design shifting away from all of
the possibilities of technology and going a little more analog going forward?
There will be.
Simplifying life, if you will?
I am attracted.
So let me say it like that.
Yeah.
When I see a sketch that seems to be going against all of the tech integration, there is something
quite sexy about it.
I'll be a human nature poly because everything is so tech as a theme that I'm drawn to these
as a designer.
Yeah.
I'm not saying that we're doing it all completely, but on the other side, you know, whenever
you had every function in the car represented by a physical button, the opposite is going
to happen.
You're going to have 2,000 buttons in front of you.
So like everything, the truth is probably not exactly one or the other.
Somewhere in the middle.
Somewhere in the middle.
Right.
Right.
So we have an expression now that we're using in Japan.
Dare to listen.
So our company was based on dare to do what others don't, the big company.
And we have strong...
I'm head of brand now, by the way.
Yes.
So it's one of my home works.
Yes.
Yes.
What is the meaning of that wonderful expression from our original 1934?
We found the writing.
And then when each function doesn't have that sense of daring in one of their key components.
So this is one of the things I'm doing is to understand what dare means for engineering,
what dare means for marketing people, for sales people, for designers.
And what we found as a wonderful accident, the biggest dare that we can really do as
humans is to listen.
As people who need to create for other people to be brave enough to just listen without
putting on top of what you're hearing.
Expectations, preconceived notions, opinions.
And so dare to listen.
I love so much.
I have it everywhere in the studio.
Especially as a Japanese company where we are an export company.
It's a small island, a diminishing population.
You're never going to make all of your money from selling internally.
Our job is to look at these lovely smiling people and somehow make them notice something
in us that they connect to.
And that is a combination of listening to them and talking to them.
So a bit of a ramble, sorry, but dare to listen is going to be part of the interiors.
What parts of technology are they really positively reacting to?
Autonomous driving is a known...
If you ask people directly, they're a bit skeptical.
They don't want to pay $10,000 or something on our cars as well.
But actually, if we're ever going to hit a point in our lives as human beings
where cars don't kill people, those cars need to get a hello a lot smarter.
So I don't think you can not embrace as a company all the advancements of camera,
AI, management of cameras.
So how can that not be reflected in the design?
So yes, I see a sketch that looked like it has nothing,
but all this other junk is in my head that to actually save humanity,
we can... I forgot what the number is, how many people will pass away
because by an automotive incident, it's a lot.
More than war is probably...
Correct, right?
It has to stop.
In your dare to listen, do you challenge yourself in daring to listen
to what a designer is put in front of you all the time?
I'm a sinner when it comes to that.
It's quite difficult.
It needs to go up on the walls in the studio because of me.
As much as anyone else, more.
At the end of the day, I have an 800 or so.
There is a tendency for you to leap because you feel, I know what that is.
I've seen that, especially almost 40 years.
A lot of experience, right, and you fall back on that experience.
I forget who it was, Einstein or someone that said that
experience is the devil of innovation or something.
I'm not saying it correctly.
And I see it in myself because you don't know if the execution of yesterday
was the problem, not the technology or the idea.
It's how it was done and tomorrow it can work.
And I can naturally take bias into that.
So you have to step away.
I'm a little bit lucky as I have my right-hand person.
I have more than one.
They're not like me at all.
I think what I learned from Jerry Hirshberg,
who opened up Eastern Design America International,
was that you should always hire in divergent pairs.
So you get one subject matter expert,
and you put a butterfly next to that person.
When I was hired, I was that butterfly.
And there was an art center guy who was spectacular.
Artists, and they sat us next to each other.
And I was so clumsy.
I wanted to just leave.
Couldn't get any ideas out.
And it turns out that he was getting inspired by my mishaps.
Because he knew how to make a car beautiful.
But he wanted to win.
And you needed not beauty.
You needed some uniqueness.
So it's important that the people around you are not like you.
And they can help you slow down.
Alfonso, I know you're seeing it like that.
But it's kind of cool.
And you need trust in each other and all of that.
After the break, I'll continue my conversation
with Nissan designer Alfonso Albaiza.
To see the full interview with Alfonso,
visit the Cars & Culture YouTube channel.
Subscribe, comment, check out hundreds of conversations
with the creators, collectors, and culture makers
who are driving the industry forward.
The automobile is one of the most important inventions
that revolutionized the modern world.
In America, the rich history of car culture runs deep.
Technology continues to shape the future of the industry.
Jason Stein is here to share the stories
of people passionate about cars
and industry leaders and innovators
to car-obsessed celebrities.
Buckle up as Jason takes you inside the boardroom,
onto the track, and around the bend
on Cars & Culture on SiriusXM Business Radio.
Welcome back to Cars & Culture here
on SiriusXM Business Channel 132.
I'm your host, Jason Stein.
Now the continuation of my interview
with Nissan designer Alfonso Albaiza.
To see the full interview with him,
visit the Cars & Culture YouTube channel.
Subscribe, comment, check out hundreds of conversations
with the creators, collectors, and culture makers
who are driving the industry forward.
Where are you finding inspiration these days?
I think I asked you this a few years ago,
but whether it's from technology,
whether it's from artwork,
whether it's fashion,
whether it's mechanical,
what's driving your inspiration?
How are you inspired?
Yeah, I mean, we started,
we went to our executive committee last year
to start a fashion department in the company.
A fashion department?
Yeah, so, and it's a really cool thing.
So we have once a year a big show
for the executive committee.
And it's about subjects that we think
we should handle for our garments.
And it's all digital,
so my team had to learn
how to make fabric move on torsos,
make them accurate,
using a lot of new technology.
Some of the technology is changing.
We have a screen that's 140 feet wide.
140 feet?
Yeah.
Curved.
And it's 24K, it's a monster.
In Japan?
Yeah, my studio.
And I saved so much money.
In the last five years,
I eliminated, I'm a shape guy,
I eliminated almost all models.
And I found that I needed
a little bit of emotion
for my executives to understand.
So this Sony developed a screen for us.
I know we're a company
that people think is in hospice.
And how does Alfonso have 140?
Because I don't think it's related.
I don't think we are frugal enough.
But there are pockets of the company
that have learned that technology
can reduce much more costs
in the beginning of a program
than you can ever cost will reduce
at the end.
And I have been an advocate of that.
And this screen is,
I don't need models.
People leave the reviews
and they never ask,
hey, when can I see a model?
Because Unreal Engine
and the combination of goggles,
Unreal Engine technology
from the gaming world,
they feel they are in,
the ceiling is also a screen.
So they're immersed.
Completely immersed.
Completely.
And then all the doors open
and I have models sometimes.
Right.
For the final production one.
Right.
To make sure that they agree.
Because you need to also self-judge.
Yeah.
And so I'm excited
about technology changing our lives.
And what happens is,
because when you're learning,
you make mistakes
more than when you're an expert.
So all these new technologies
are coming and we're making shape.
It doesn't, we're not good at it.
But then you get excited,
oh, we can go like that.
So that's happening.
Your cells are popping.
Yeah.
And then some architect
makes some crazy things.
And you're jealous.
It's not that that building
can apply to your world.
You're jealous.
Jealous of the beauty of the artwork.
Of the achievement.
The achievement.
Yeah.
And then I see some of my friends.
They make a call.
Jealous.
Reminds you.
This is a
perpetual
100 meter race that
never stops.
Well said.
Yeah.
Yeah.
An endless marathon
of 100 meter races.
Yeah.
And it's great.
It's great.
You just need to,
we gotta get out.
We need to talk.
We need to
see beauty,
appreciate beauty.
Ask them why they did
something
on my Korean brothers.
Yeah.
Democratization of luxury.
Yeah.
That's a profound thing.
Yeah.
They did.
Seems like not a thing almost.
No, no.
It's a thing.
They did that.
Yeah.
Give me a,
in the final few minutes
that we have here,
what's the view
of what's happening in China
right now
in terms of design
and advancement.
And there's a lot of talk,
Alfonso,
of the overtaking,
the Chinese influence
that's overtaking
most of the world.
Maybe not North America
yet.
Yeah.
But.
It should.
It should.
Yeah.
It's a strange thing for me to say.
I understand, yeah.
Because I don't think
if not happening doesn't help us.
Because what's happening
is an interesting thing
that's happening.
In that by
decision making,
by prototyping speed,
by decision making again,
because it's not,
people think they just make a decision
and they make it.
That's not what happened.
I've had programs
that at CabinFix,
we changed the length
and the shape of the car.
At CabinFix,
which is on a 26 month process,
is deep into this.
They are the agility
of the Chinese
producers,
creators.
This is something we have to have
in this country.
Because we,
in the long term,
we,
of course,
countries have to defend.
But I want the country
that accepted my family
from Cuba
to be number one.
And to be number one
is the new language's agility
and efficiency.
It doesn't mean
anything changes
in the joy that we have.
We just have to learn to get to the end
quicker than we do.
So I find,
I mean, I have jokes about China
in the sense that it's almost,
I think the cars are beautiful.
Not all of them, of course,
those and some of these
Zickers and avatars,
these are stunning cars.
And it's like if Porsche
Cayenne, it's not two companies.
Cayenne and the Panamera
had the most beautiful baits.
And they're made perfectly.
And they're more flush than a Porsche.
They're more, I mean,
they go three times farther
than a car that we make.
And in China,
the difficulty for us is
as designers, we always
think you have to go away
from the core
to be noticed.
The sensitivity
of the Chinese customer
doesn't have the same need
as an American customer.
They are expecting you
to perfect
what they already love.
They're not so patient
or interested
in taking them over there.
No, no, no. That's not necessary.
And you lose market.
This is what was happening.
We were insisting and I was responsible
and criticized rightfully
for demanding a uniqueness.
And it was a learning for myself
to when we did the N7
is to love
what is happening in China
and make it
incrementally
unique and special.
But it's in that world.
And
that part doesn't need to happen here.
The part that needs to happen here
is everything we do.
Let's do it in a way
where we eliminate waste,
bureaucracy.
Most people think
that China has a bureaucracy
and not
decision making.
That's incredibly decisive and
the CEO is looking at sketches
and formulating and sharing
opinions.
This is a huge advantage
Yvonne, our new CEO has.
He's so linked to Manu Zakiri
making things from us.
He's an engineer.
But he was so deep involved with design
that
I think that China
is something we must learn
from.
Practically.
Because in Europe you're going to deal with it.
Mexico, you're dealing with it.
We're defending. We're number one in Mexico
as a brand.
But the fact is we're being surrounded
by the Chinese.
Everywhere in the world.
That's why I'm saying it's not healthy
to resist.
I won't resist it
because I think it's going to make us
bed.
So I don't want to resist.
Are you learning design?
Perfection.
From them.
Very much.
This is another.
We probably need 10 hours.
There's trends that happen
even in where ideas are coming.
When I was living in London
most of the Russian kids
were dominating. Their portfolios
were spectacular.
And we were hiring in all the
studios.
Super creative Russian kids.
And then that center of
excellence moved to Korea.
Korea, yeah. Who knows?
It's nothing. No one said
it's time.
I think it's all inspiration
has no border.
So probably the young kids from Korea
were looking at these
passionate Russian portfolios
and they brought a different value.
And US is always in there
because we are the melting pot.
We have a little bit of everywhere.
China now.
Those kids are nuts.
The level of
creativity.
And they're winning. The next centra
is won by
Chinese kid from our Shanghai
studio.
For us it's not a border.
The Chinese kid
You're going to pull from wherever the talent is
We do global competition.
And so the best
idea wins.
It's another part that I love
is that what is this change
of how is it
that the core of hotness
seems to be moving around
and I know I'm overstating it
but I'm just saying
based on the selections
that we are making
there is a shift
that happens.
It's beautiful.
I can't thank you enough for being on the program
and for being with me again
and I know we have moved our
own center of hotness
from South Beach
to Northern California
but you have delivered another
wonderful synopsis
of where we are in the world today
and we'll catch up again in another couple of years
and I think things will change again
as they always do.
Alfonso, thank you so much.
What a pleasure being with you.
About this episode
Alfonso Albaisa, Nissan's Senior Vice President of Global Design, shares insights on the future of automotive design during a conversation at the Quail motorsports gathering. He discusses the unveiling of the Infiniti QX-65 monograph and the brand's shift towards a more avant-garde design philosophy. Albaisa reflects on the impact of chaos and change within the industry, particularly regarding electric vehicles and the influence of Chinese design practices. He emphasizes the importance of agility in design and the need to listen to consumer desires while pushing creative boundaries.
Original notes
Nissan SVP Global Design Alfonso Albaisa
Cars & Culture with Jason Stein
SiriusXM
0:00
46:30