Episode 220: Infiniti VP Tiago Castro

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and around the bend, on Cars and Culture on SiriusXM Business Radio.

Welcome into episode 220 of Cars and Culture with Jason Stein here on SiriusXM.

Business Channel 132.

Great to have you along for the ride again with us this week.

Every August, Monterey Car Week becomes the center of the automotive universe.

And at the Quail in 2025, Infiniti made its mark with the global debut of the QX65 monogram concept,

a striking signal of the brand's next chapter.

And at the forefront of that story is Tiago Castro,

the man leading Infiniti's charge in the Americas.

Tiago has spent nearly three decades inside the Nissan and Infiniti organizations,

and he brings a deep global perspective to the role.

From his early days in engineering and product planning to leadership positions across Latin America,

the Middle East and Asia, he's built a reputation as a bridge between cultures and markets.

And today, as Infiniti's regional head,

he is charged with navigating an intensely competitive luxury landscape

while driving the brand toward innovation, electrification,

and renewed emotional connection with its customers.

In this episode recorded live at the Quail,

we talk about the design language and intent behind the latest concept,

Infiniti's strategy for growth in the Americas,

and his own career journey from Brazil to the world stage.

We also explore how Infiniti is reshaping its identity

in a fast-evolving luxury market

and why Monterey was the perfect stage for this pivotal debut.

Here's Tiago Castro on Cars and Culture.

Hi, I'm Tiago Castro.

This is Car and Culture with Jason Stein.

His first time at the Quail.

First time, right?

First time for me, absolutely.

Right, right.

Welcome into the program.

Welcome to the Quail.

Welcome to the epicenter of car culture.

This is amazing.

In fact, I'm loving this.

And being here with Infiniti with three concept vehicles

in the same day, it's been amazing.

It's been a great day.

Very important moment for Infiniti as we talked earlier.

And yeah, I'm glad to be able to talk to you as well about this.

Well, thank you and thanks for having us here.

And what was your impression when you drove in this morning

and the fog is lifting and the mist is burning off

and all of a sudden this all appears?

I mean, was it what you had in your mind?

You know, I had seen a lot online pictures

and talking to our teams.

This is actually Infiniti's 19th year in Pebble Beach.

So Infiniti has been committed to this program.

I took the helm of the Infiniti Americas earlier this year.

So this is why it's my first time.

But when I arrived, it was exactly what you said.

You're expecting something, but it's always more

than you expected, right?

And I arrived 7 AM, the glamorous life of executives

of automotive industry.

You got to show up early, get everything ready,

make sure everything's going, but it's fun.

We love it. That's why it's fun.

Yeah. By the way, happy four and a half months.

Thank you. In the role.

Yes. It's been a quick 18 weeks, right?

A quick, yeah. It's being wild.

It's being a lot of fun in a sense.

And I say a lot of fun in a sense that we're

able to quickly align as an executive team,

understand that Nissan Motor Corporation will be stronger

with a stronger Infiniti.

We have alignment from global, from regional leadership.

And we drafted a plan to continue to grow with this brand.

In fact, next week, we have opportunity

to share the plan with all the retailers

from the Americas in Las Vegas.

So it's going to be an important moment for us as well.

So today is all about clients and future clients.

And then next week is about our retailer network,

which is a core piece of our business, as you know.

Yeah, this is the prelude to what the future holds.

And you're showing some future here, obviously,

with these concepts that you talked about.

But there's also a future in the sense

that you're going to map out with your senior leadership

from around the world, you're going

to map out what the future looks like for all of your

stakeholders who are in North America.

How important is not only this moment now,

but that moment in terms of setting

the direction of Infiniti?

Fundamental, we have to be transparent.

We have to be sure to present and explain what can be done.

We also have to be transparent to what cannot be done.

So everybody's on the same page.

I don't see this as a selling moment.

It's a moment to face the facts and really

size the opportunity.

Makes sense?

So we're sizing the opportunity together

with the retailer network.

We are very serious about the brand.

You see what we're showing today, the QX65 monograph

shown today.

It's a really nice hint towards what

we're going to bring next spring to the US market

and to the Americas market with a vehicle that

hits one of the biggest segments in the luxury,

in the Citro, SUV.

This is a fastback, you see.

So it has the cues of styling of the FX.

FX, the original.

We talked to Alfonso about that.

Exactly.

But then he also doesn't compromise

on the capability, the cargo.

So it's going to be really interesting to see.

And then we have two other models with the QX80.

I love the QX80 because it's been doing so well for us.

But now we're trying to experiment two unique models,

completely the opposite sides of the spectrum,

and test with this crowd, what do they like?

And the company is serious about taking one to market,

using a fast to market approach to bring one of those to clients.

That's the business side of it right now.

I want to talk about your personal side

for a little bit, though, too.

You come from an automotive family.

Your father was involved in the industry.

And you sort of grew up within it.

And you've grown up within Nissan.

Because a lot of people might not know

that this is the only workplace that you've known back

when you were in Farmington Hills, Michigan,

and you were an intern.

And you were as a, you know.

Designing interiors and seats.

See, look at that.

Right, exactly.

Went to school in Michigan, born in Brazil.

Yeah, tell me about your family history

and what was important about the auto industry

in that context.

So I grew up in Brazil.

As you said, my dad worked for a company

called Ethan Corporation.

Yeah, of course, supplier.

Right.

And in the division of trucks.

So they did a lot of transmissions.

And since I was little, we loved cars as a family.

In fact, my dad is a mechanical engineer as he grew up.

But, you know, he was on the business side.

He eventually, and we used to go to the factory

sometimes to see how it was.

So he could, I think he really wanted me

to be an engineer.

So he kind of led us that way.

I was going to ask whether he wanted you to go

to the auto industry.

Two boys, both of us are engineers.

Both of us got our MBAs.

I went to corporate.

My brother did his own business.

In fact, he recently sold to a big telecommunication company.

But that's outside of the scope of our conversation.

But my dad, then he eventually had a chance

to move to the US to run the supply chain

and purchasing for Ethan out of Guildsburg, Michigan.

That's when I moved.

And I did my mechanical engineering

at Western Michigan University.

So you moved before you started college?

Exactly.

So it was really interesting timing.

In fact, we were not sure if we wanted

to move my brother and I.

And the company said, well, why don't you guys,

as a family, move here, come here for a week,

explore the city, see what you think,

and then you can make a decision.

They strategically sent us in the first week

of September in Michigan.

Beautiful sky.

We arrived at the school starting.

All these good looking people.

Everybody, you can imagine, two boys

are like, we're coming here.

And later, guess what happened?

We come back in November, snowy.

Exactly.

Nobody told us about this, you know?

But we loved every minute of it.

My initial idea is we'll do college

and go back to Brazil.

Life got in its way.

The Nissan opportunity came in.

I started as a design engineer.

And then through my career, I did a lot, right?

From design engineer to product planning.

So you kind of ran through the organization.

Exactly.

And I do think that's an important opportunity

in order to sit in a chair like what I'm sitting now

to understand the breadth of the organization

and how important each one of those steps are

in order to do something and to design a future.

Because today, one of my primary goals

is to, you know, we need to improve the present, for sure.

But we have to also, at the same time,

accelerate the future for infinity.

And the only way to work effectively

is to understand how everything is done

and do it better, ideally.

Let's go back to Brazil for a minute.

Where did you grow up in Brazil?

In Sao Paulo.

You were in Sao Paulo?

Yeah.

Okay, all right.

So you were in the epicenter of Brazilian culture.

Exactly.

And, you know, huge city.

Huge.

In Brazil.

We, you know, we love to live in there too.

Through my career in Nissan, believe it or not,

twice I was asked to go to Brazil for different reasons.

Which is very interesting.

The first time was in 2011.

I moved there.

Nissan started operations in Brazil in 1999.

So really, 10 years later, I was going there.

We were a small division inside Renault.

We had an alliance with Renault at the time.

And the idea was to separate and create

our own factory in Brazil.

So we needed a team to make the plan to do this.

At the time, the president of Nissan in Brazil

was Mr. Cristian Mune,

who today is chairman of America's Four Infinity.

And Nissan and Infinity for both.

And our boss here in the region.

And then I worked in the product planning side

of my dual responsibility with Ivana Espinosa,

who is our global CEO today.

So, you know, we know the team here.

So the three of you were intertwined in this journey

from a different level now to the top level.

To the top level.

So it's been a great journey.

And, you know, I joke,

because every time I start thinking about, you know,

should I do something else, there's a new opportunity.

Now this comes with some challenges,

you know, personal challenges that we know.

Moving is not easy.

I was counting with my wife.

You know, we lived five different homes in six years

because of different locations.

We did personal moves too.

But we were not planning to move with the company.

So we were in downtown Nashville for a little bit.

We moved to Franklin, Tennessee.

Then we moved to Brazil.

Then I moved to Naperville, Illinois.

And now I'm back here, frankly.

So this is since 2019.

So that's a lot.

And it takes a toll on you.

But those are also investments that we make

on the personal side.

You asked for the personal side.

And that's where your significant order,

your wife, in my case, the kids,

they also, it's part of the challenge,

but everybody's supportive and I love that.

That's great.

Was there ever the thought that if it wasn't automotive

that it would be something else?

Or was there that never come into play?

Actually, I thought a lot about banking at one point.

At the time that I graduated, banking was really, really

strong.

And a lot of opportunity in Brazil at that time in banking.

They wanted to hire engineers with it

being coming out of a school in the US.

It was a huge opportunity.

But I just had this love for automotive.

And then later on, I had a cousin that went in banking

and ended up in Goldman Sachs making quite a bit of money.

And I was looking, it's like, interesting.

But the joke between him and I is like,

he's loving the money, but he hates his job.

It's like, hey, I love my job.

I wake up every day and I'm like, I can't wait to do this.

And when you have an opportunity to do what we're

doing here at the Quale, this pays, it's a lot.

Let's talk about what you have at the Quale.

So QX65 sits as the centerpiece of the exhibit

here at the Quale.

Which, as you said, is kind of a fastback,

racy, two-row SUV that has some style and spirit to it.

And then, of course, you have two other performance vehicles

on either side, the QX80.

What is it about what you're trying to show

with the direction of the brand that's represented here?

So what will Infiniti stand for?

And what should it stand for going forward?

The first thing that we wanna show

is that we are here to stay and there's no stopping us.

That's an important statement.

And I think those three concepts make this statement.

One, we are giving you a hint of something

that is coming just a few months from now in the spring.

And it's a very competitive, beautifully designed,

and Alfonso spoke with you, amazing looking vehicle.

The other two is we are not gonna slow down

in that upper side of the market.

The large-sized SUV where our clients are rewarding us

with lots of sales, we wanna continue to explore that.

And those two concepts, as I said earlier,

they explore this unique sides of the market

that we can eventually offer to the consumers.

And consumer preference is skewing more

towards these type of vehicles anyway, right?

I mean, you're seeing growth on that side of it.

Yeah, I think the luxury market is really interesting

because people are exploring now

or attracted to things that are unique.

Here's the QX80, but this is the QX80,

for example, Autograph.

Autograph is the one that turns the fast for us.

But you would not think it's the one that turns the most

because it's the most expensive, but that's

because it is unique.

You present something like the Terrain's Pack,

very unique, the thing that I was describing to the team

when we were developing this,

and they were telling me,

so imagine somebody in Colorado.

They want to have a great time.

They want to be in a luxurious vehicle.

They still want their massage seats,

but they want to go off the Terrain.

And then eventually they want to land

in downtown Aspen in style.

It's a perfect vehicle for that.

Yes, exactly.

Where is the target in terms of trying to,

I know you've had a lot of success with the QX80

in taking buyers away from other brands

and also consecutive sales.

Seven months of consecutive sales, right?

A record.

The total seven months is record and year over year

every month, beat the last year.

Who are you taking buyers from?

It's a combination.

Many buyers from luxury SUV debt segments.

There's also people that are stepping up

from mass producing markets, full size coming up.

And then people that are in the stage of their lives

that they feel like they want to grow up.

So imagine if you have a QX65 type of vehicle

and now your family expanded to three kids

and you want it on the next step,

they come to us as well.

So this has worked really well for us

to broaden the appeal of the brand

really to a much bigger segment.

Right.

When I look at Infinity generally,

and this is no surprise

and you and I have talked about this privately,

you go back to the launch of the Detroit Auto Show

way back, right?

30 years ago?

Something like that.

The brand stood for something at that stage

and had a certain momentum.

Alfonso talked a little bit about this as well.

It sort of lost its way along the way, I guess.

When you took the job,

what was the biggest challenge that you needed to

maybe take on in order to realize

the full potential of the brand?

Knowing that it had had those curves and bends

in the road.

Yeah, we, through management change,

within Infinity itself,

there was a lot of investment,

own investment and so forth.

I think what we needed to do is to sit back

with our global team members,

with our internal team members in the US

and ask the question,

who do we want to be?

Do we want to be a premium brand for everybody

or we're okay to attack segments of the market?

I think the answer is we needed to be

a premium brand for you.

So the people that we identify with,

they need to love us.

And maybe not everybody will love,

but there's people that will identify with us,

will love us.

And we will design the product.

We'll design the client experience to do so.

And you'll see more about this,

this maybe a little bold style of going to edgy,

taking some risks sometimes.

You would say a premium SUV with a terrain spec,

it's a little edgy, a little,

but that's where we want to be.

And if everybody at Quoio don't like it,

maybe it's okay.

But if the people that like it love it,

then we want to take advantage of that.

And I think that's the first thing

that we want to come together as a team to agree.

And I think we have that agreement.

The second piece for Infinity

was that idea of Nissan and Infinity.

How do we interact?

And I do, right now,

there's also a very good understanding that

mentioned earlier, Nissan will be stronger

with a stronger Infinity, okay?

And we should maximize synergies

and as much as possible

in a way that we differentiate the brands completely,

but we're still maximizing the synergies.

Alfonso says there's a sign in his office

that's in Japan that says dare to listen.

Dare to listen to colleagues,

dare to listen to the market,

dare to listen to your customers.

And I think his message to me was,

and his message overall is,

we have to challenge ourselves in ways

that maybe Infinity has not done in the past,

but that listening becomes the primary

goal, I guess, going forward

or the focus going forward.

Do you agree with that?

Do you have to dare to listen?

Absolutely.

And the reason why I say absolutely

is I think what we're doing here is a good example.

We show those two concepts

without knowing which one people would love,

tell you the truth.

But why don't we come into a forum like The Coil,

get to see and get the feedback,

and next week, when we go to the All Retailer meeting,

it's actually an All Retailer meeting

with Infinity and Nissan dealers

across the Americas.

3,000 people together, imagine this.

And I'm going to invite everyone

to come to a product vault

and they'll have a chance to vote.

So I want to hear from them as well.

What do you love?

Where do you think the opportunity is

based on your clients?

We know clients in Houston, Texas

are very different than Miami, Florida,

or Chicago, Illinois.

We know they're different.

So let's hear from our leading retailers.

They're the ones interacting with the customers every day

and see what we can do.

So absolutely listening is key.

Yeah, there's been a lot of talk in the market

about making sure that the Infinity experience

is also, you mentioned it a minute ago,

at a higher level, returning to that

kind of white glove service, if you will.

Do you have work to do there?

There's always work to do there.

I say somebody, I was talking to a person today

that he said, the Infinity bones are good.

And the reason why we use these words is

if you look at client experience surveys

and so forth, JD Power, number two, just behind Porsche.

So yeah, there's some good things,

but there's always opportunity to improve.

One of the things that I'm working with the team is

how can we empower the front lines?

So give our field team opportunity to work

geographically with a retailer and make decisions

that are higher level, that we can solve problems quicker.

The one thing you know in automotive,

there will be problems, some problems.

The key is how you take care of them.

And I think that's what can really differentiate.

So I want to go big on its product development,

the right product in the right segment,

and then client experience.

These are the two priorities that we have.

The Nissan recovery plan, if you will,

as it's been termed as implementing decisive

and bold actions, enhancing performance,

but you also got to get leaner in a lot of ways.

And that doesn't mean cost cutting,

but it means efficiency.

Other ways that you're looking at to

become more efficient as an operation.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

How are you doing this?

First step that I had is my first week in the job,

I invited the dealer advisory board to join me.

And I told them it's going to be a little painful,

you may not be used to this,

but we mapped every single program or initiative

that we had with the retailers.

Anything that either paid money

or they required to report to us,

there's over 80 items.

And we went one by one.

Does it help sell car?

Does it help take care of clients?

Does it help any revenue for either us or them?

The answer was no for all three.

Chopping.

That exercise alone, we saved over $10 million.

This is literally one meeting that we went over in detail.

That's meaningful and that sets the precedence

for everything we're going to do going forward.

And you can see your team already moving that direction.

My team now does that with their team

and so forth and so on.

So it's a cascading effect.

It's not about cutting the cost

or cutting the budget itself.

We can reinvest to this.

In fact, we did.

Increasing media, for example.

So.

And I know that the vehicle development process

is also being revamped too, right?

You're looking at how you actually,

Vinay Shahani and I talked about this

at the New York Auto Show,

that you're really looking at the time to market

and you want to cut down development time.

It took too long to develop vehicles, right?

And I mean, dealers have told me that as well

and he talked about it.

That it's just getting the market faster,

being more agile.

Alfonso mentioned agility too.

Agility is everything nowadays.

You speak to market, how we respond to tariffs,

how you respond to customer demand changing, right?

We have to be fast.

And when it comes to product development,

we are trying to do a significant reduction

on the overall product development.

What I've been pushing to is on the decision making,

how can we decide quickly?

Those two concepts on QX80,

we did them in about six weeks.

And then we're gonna test them

and then if we believe that there's a business case,

we can implement quickly.

There is a fast to market approach ready to go.

The question is, is the business case strong?

Should we invest in this?

Decision has to be made fast.

Yes, no, go.

After the break, I'll continue my conversation

with Infinity Vice President Tiago Castro.

To see the full interview with him,

visit the Cars and Culture YouTube channel,

subscribe, comment and 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 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 back to Cars and Culture here on SiriusXM.

I'm your host, Jason Stein.

Now the continuation of my interview

with Infinity Vice President Tiago Castro.

To see the full interview with Tiago,

visit the Cars and Culture YouTube channel,

subscribe, comment and check out hundreds of conversations

with the creators, collectors and culture makers

who are driving the industry forward.

You said the word tariffs.

So, and we're on business radio.

How have tariffs affected your world?

I know there were, earlier in the year,

there was stop production orders in Mexico

and there's a prioritization of U.S. manufacturing

at your facilities in the U.S.

Tell me where we are today and how it's affecting you.

So the first thing we needed to do is, wow, tariffs came in.

What do we do with each country?

Because it wasn't just a decision in the U.S.,

Canada, Mexico, Latin America.

Two of your other regions, by the way, yeah.

Exactly, so and I'm talking to the countries

to find out where is the opportunity at

and then obviously a strong team

that can communicate well helps.

So we put everybody together.

Canada had opportunity with the QX-50.

We had to pause the production.

Well, let's increase the production of the spec of QX-50.

In the U.S., QX-60, we're about to launch

the new QX-60, right?

Model year 26 is a new QX-60.

Well, let's increase the production of that model

and bring more U.S. build vehicles to the U.S.

So very dynamic, talking about speed of decision.

Very fast. Talking about agility.

Agility, we have a very agile team

with Venetia Hanyu mentioned his name.

We talked about Christian Muneve before.

Very smart and also team that is prepared

to take those actions.

So I felt really confident as we made the changes.

Obviously as the time passes

and things are solidifying,

we understand where tariffs will land,

then we can really make the decisions of what's next,

right?

Meanwhile, we're optimizing,

trying to find ways to reduce costs and so forth.

It's difficult to operate in a situation

that's so fluid though, isn't it?

Yeah, absolutely.

The best way for us to operate

is to know the rule of the games.

When the rule of the games change, it's difficult.

Now we can adapt, as I mentioned earlier,

but eventually I feel like we're getting to a point

that things are stabilizing

and I hope it will stabilize.

Well, you came in on April 1st

and most of this took effect.

April 2nd. On April 2nd.

So my first letter to the dealer network

was April 2nd right in the morning

and I wanted to send a letter immediately.

What are we going to do?

Boom, boom, boom with the decisions.

We sent April 2nd and we will pause this production,

we will do this and we explained everything.

And I think that was a statement as well

for the retailer network to understand

where I come from and how I want to operate with them.

I truly believe in that,

family spirit, partnership.

I joke with our dealer advisory board

that this is, I don't like to call partners,

I like to call like a family,

because a family you're going to fight really strong

but you're going to leave the room

who's still part of the family.

You're not going to,

so we got to find a way together.

We got to find a way together.

It's been very positive.

I can't ask for a better dealer advisory board

to tell you the truth.

They've been helpful as well.

Is it fair to say that in chaotic situations

that strength rises to the forefront?

Absolutely, I completely agree with you.

I asked Alfonso how you design in chaos

and he said it brings out all of the best in creativity

because it's not a stable environment,

you're learning it all the time.

Everything, you got to adjust,

you got to be able to stay nimble.

You stay attentive also.

There's no opportunity for you to just get sleepy.

And I think we are actually living this as we speak,

not just because of tariffs,

but because of where the company is.

How can we take advantage of every single opportunity?

You've made some workforce reductions as well.

That's been announced globally,

currently in a study with looking at other plant closures.

Are you trying to optimize footprint?

Is that what you're doing?

Is that the goal?

Yeah, the goal is to understand

what is the real demand

and have the footprint, manufacturing footprint

that is more aligned with the demand

and then produce the right vehicle

and to the right market

so we can attract clients.

Recently somebody asked me

what does success look like in a few years from today?

Success to me for infinity would be

our sales space is going up consistently.

Year after year as we introduce

the right product to the market,

demand, leading indicators,

they're all going up as well.

And then the client experience,

it's, we're really creating an environment

that people love what they're buying.

If you get to this, this is success, right?

The rest comes with it,

the profitability and so forth will come with it

because you're doing the right thing consistently.

And every day I wake up

and I'm like, what do I have to do today

to be better than yesterday?

How have you changed in the last four months as a manager?

It's being, well, I have a very talented team, first of all.

Listening, we talked about listening to clients,

listening to dealers, but listening to your team,

allowing them to bring their experience to you

in the luxury market.

So that has been very rewarding to me to see.

I have changed, I think, in a way that, you know,

aligning also with my family, what needs to happen.

You know, the first three months of the job,

you know, we were in transition from Illinois to Tennessee.

And I sat down with my wife and said,

hey, we need to work this out.

I mean, I'm gonna work a lot.

So I'm gonna go to Tennessee every week.

I'm gonna spend the week there.

I leave either Sunday nights or like 7 a.m. flight.

And I'm gonna come back either Friday at 10 p.m.

or Saturday.

And I'm gonna work a lot,

but I'm gonna be preparing this company for the future

that we're all gonna enjoy as a family.

And having her support is huge.

So that has been important too.

So anyways, you know that very well.

And we know as families,

it's important for us to align with the family.

It's funny, a Brazilian in Tennessee.

Who would have thought, right?

Are you go down to Broadway and go to see some of the...

Not as much, obviously.

You go to Broadway when there's events or, you know,

recently there was the Coldplay concert.

Did they obviously go watch it?

There's so many things to do.

That was an interesting show to be at.

Yeah, it was amazing.

So, well, I wasn't in that one, but I don't know.

I was with my wife too, so it was okay to hug her.

But that was where it was.

Yeah, that's fascinating.

Yeah, so it's been great to be in Tennessee.

The first time I went to Tennessee was in 2003, really,

when I started.

In 2005, I spent a month in Tennessee

in the factory actually doing a training,

engineering training.

And recently I went to visit

and they showed me a picture of me

from the newsletter of this Myrna plant

and I was installing seats into the car.

So you can see my baby face, you know, installing seats.

I'll show you a picture of it these days.

What a journey for you just to go through the company

to see all of the changes.

I had the opportunity over time to interview Mr. Gown

and Mr. Tavares.

And now, I mean, you've seen all of the leadership changes

in very, like Alfonso, in very dramatic ways.

The company has kind of moved through its own S-curves.

Absolutely.

It's been interesting to be part of it.

But, you know, recently our chief HR officer was here

and I told him, now I am part of the solution.

Yeah.

I am responsible to make this company grow

in a sustainable way, in a way that we're taking

step by step, making it the best of we can be.

Part of it is bringing the speed back,

this competitive edge.

I think that's one thing that I, you know,

going back to what I've brought since I arrived.

I really love the competitive spirit,

the dynamic, being dynamic, you know,

how can, what do we need to do to grow?

Oh, I wish we had a concept vehicle.

Let's make it happen.

And I feel that our leaders now

that are part of the global and regional leadership

they have this.

So it's so good to work together.

You're a challenger brand now, right?

Yeah.

And I think it's a fair way to say.

And that gives you the opportunity to do some things

that maybe other brands can't do

because they're not in that category.

But you also have all of the upside, correct?

Yes.

And we have another thing that is an important foundation

is people that love infinity.

We have clients and retailers that really love the brand.

And that helps us.

You know, whenever we posted the QX65 monogram,

you see people talking about, where is the Q50?

I mean, people remember, they ask questions.

The effects that you said earlier.

I remember when the FX came out.

And it was a dramatic vehicle.

It was so unlike anything else

that had been on the street before.

It kind of like fast back, almost sport coupe.

Yes.

So, you know, those are things that give us,

you know, the feel that we need to wake up in the morning

and let's go do it again, you know?

So, it's very nice to be able to do that.

We didn't talk about emissions changes

or regulations that have changed now in the last few months.

It's another thing that's happened

since you've taken office.

So, where are we on that pendulum

that is now swinging on the other side?

That is another interesting piece for our challenges now

is where do we go?

What we're seeing is that if you stop by

and think about just crying demand.

Right.

There's a lot of demand for internal combustion engines.

Right.

Hybrid is expanding more and more.

And yes, there is demand for EV,

but it's not a dominant player.

And it's going to take much longer than we expected.

Okay?

So, if you exclude government conversation.

Now, if the government makes significant changes,

this that I just described could change.

But right now, it feels like the government's

taking away a little bit

and the demand will follow what clients want.

So, we're happy to adapt.

Next week, we're going to be talking to all the retailers

and we will show a portfolio of vehicles

that include ice engine,

include hybrid,

that include electric vehicles.

Very important to have a portfolio for all.

But...

We're sitting here surrounded by roaring engines

in the background behind us.

I mean, will we see any of that stuff in the future?

I mean...

I think we can.

The track spec that we have here,

it's a little bit of that, you know?

So, we sat down and said,

well, what do people really want in a big SUV?

You know, this huge engine

and huge horsepower

and be able to accelerate and hear the noise.

The scene that we joke to is...

And it's really realities.

When you arrive in your garage,

just sit down, you turn on the vehicle

and you hear the roaring engines saying,

I've made it.

Right.

And the track spec will do this.

We increased the horsepower of the current engine

by 50% imagine that.

Wow.

Over 650 plus,

we're not announcing officially,

650 plus horsepower,

750 plus foot of torque,

so you can imagine.

You mentioned the retailers

and getting together with the retailers.

What's your message to them

and their 3,000 folks?

I think the first message is

understanding how serious we are

about the Infinity brand

and ensuring that we're here to stay

and the company will invest.

We have our global CEO, Ivana Spinoza,

joining us,

Chairman of America's Vinay Shahani.

We're all going to be together

as a leadership team

showing them the strength

and what we want to do with this brand.

That's the number one message.

The second one is,

you know, we needed to be looking at the future

but be realistic about the future.

I don't want to promise things

that we cannot achieve

or even just maybe projects

that are just in the air.

So we will be very transparent.

You know, will this year be the best year?

No, next year, not yet,

but we will make steady progress

towards the future

that we're all going to be proud of.

I think that's really the message

that I wanted them to live with.

And then we're going to do this together.

Yeah.

And if we do this together,

you know, we're stronger that way.

How much of your four months

have you spent trailing the country

listening to dealers?

I'm sure it's a ton.

So I had to really look at the operations

in America and prioritize the U.S. first.

So I traveled the U.S. primarily.

I also leverage Zoom.

I spoke with a lot of arbitrary dealers via Zoom.

I visited in events.

I was able to put together a group of dealers

so you can meet more than one at once.

Visitors are also their locations in many cases.

So it's part of the listening

that we talked earlier, right?

It's not just listening on a phone call.

I have an open door policy,

open cell phone policy.

Everybody have my number.

I want to make sure that all my retailers

have my number.

They can call me.

We have a very capable team

as I shared with you earlier

that obviously help filtrate some of these

and bring the hot topics.

But that's part of it, yeah.

You cover Canada.

You cover Mexico as well.

How are those two markets?

We are going through all the transition as well.

Similar to the U.S., there's opportunity to grow.

There's opportunity to bring the right product

to those markets.

Each market is very different.

In Latin America, a smaller vehicle is better for them.

Canada is very similar to the U.S.

You know a little bit of, well, Canada, I hear.

I do.

I know a little bit about that market.

As you know, it's closer than Mexico to the U.S.

So we are working with the team with the same concept though.

Bring the right product, take care of the clients,

work together with retailers.

It's not a unique formula.

I'm not saying anything unique,

but if you do it well, and that's the secret,

then you build success.

Back to the U.S., I know that there's a desire

by dealers to really just have more product.

Not even just refreshed or brand new,

but to have different types.

Are there other segments that you would consider?

Yes, and that's part of those, you know,

one new product per year.

We will bring new products, new segments

versus what we have today.

I'm not ready to share what we're doing.

Next week, we're gonna share with the retailers.

There will be a few releases that I was asked to hold

as much as possible, of course,

but that's gonna be important.

It's an important part of it.

It's amazing.

We have some airplanes going through it.

That's right, exactly.

That's amazing.

The Coil has airplanes and engines of every form.

I know, but that's gonna be part of it.

And, you know, new powertrains and segments.

We're exploring, you know, with design,

also the characteristic of the brand, you know.

How does it feel?

The feel of it.

The feel, the flavor, the edgy flavor

that we talked about.

And I think we have a really interesting recipe to present.

Well, there's probably nobody who knows

Infinity Nissan better than you

when you think about your longevity.

And it's not that common anymore

to be at one car company for this length of time.

You have all the institutional knowledge

of what's happened in the past

going back to your beginning, don't you?

Yeah, and the opportunity to look back

and do it right, again,

not that we didn't do it right

because there was many things that were done right.

Take advantage of those.

One interesting fact that I didn't share with you.

When I arrived at Nissan,

my first vehicle was a G35 sedan

with a manual transmission.

Wow, there you go.

So this is amazing, right?

That fast sedan.

And then I just remember one is so badly

coming out of college and getting a vehicle like that.

It was like so inspirational.

Absolutely.

Yeah, yeah.

Well, thank you again for being on the program.

I really appreciate it.

And thanks for sharing your story

and the story of Infinity and what's to come.

Thank you, Tiago.

Thank you.

Good to see you.

Thank you to my guest again today, Tiago Castro of Infinity.

We appreciate him sharing his journey.

To see the full interview with him,

visit the Cars and Culture YouTube channel.

Like, subscribe and dive into our growing library

of nearly 300 episodes

where the road always leads to the people

who shape the ride.

This is episode 220.

I'm your host, Jason Stein.

We'll see you down the road.

Episode 220: Infiniti VP Tiago Castro

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