Nissan, king of the 84-month auto loan, is still in trouble. The once-thriving brand has been spinning its tires to get out of a bad situation by throwing piles of cash in an attempt to convince consumers to buy its cars—but that wasn't enough. Now it's pressing the big red button to activate a drastic contingency plan in an attempt to avoid sinking any deeper.
Welcome back to Critical Materials, your daily roundup for all things EV and automotive tech. Today, we're chatting about Nissan entering "emergency recovery mode," Rivian's refusal to jump on the autonomy train, and the re-buttoning of modern cars. Let's jump in.
30%: Nissan's CEO Sounds The Alarm Louder Than Ever
Nissan CEO Makoto Uchida is sounding the alarm: Nissan is officially in trouble. It's not like the writing hasn't been on the wall; hell, it's painted all over the windows and doors too. But now the company has found itself in what Uchida calls an "extremely tough situation" that the company will need to take some pretty drastic measures to overcome.
Automotive News reports that the plan is to enter emergency recovery mode, which begins with cutting jobs. Of Nissan's 133,580 employees, approximately 9,000 (6.7%) will soon find themselves separated from the company. This is after Nissan already offered certain U.S. employees aged over 52 a voluntary severance program back in August. Uchida says that this isn't about cutting jobs just to trim the fat, but instead about trimming production.
An adjacent phase is scaling back production. Nissan plans to reduce the operational capacity of its 25 production lines by around 20%. Chief Monozukuri Officer Hideyuki Sakamoto—who leads Nissan's production arm, similar to a VP of Manufacturing here in the U.S.—says that the imbalance between the number of jobs slashed and the production cut will allow Nissan to adjust the line speed and shift patterns, hopefully resulting in an increase in efficiency.
Then there's the issue of raising some additional capacity. Nissan currently holds a stake of around 34% in Mitsubishi. It plans to sell a third of those shares (which amount to around 10% of Nissan's total control) back to Mitsubishi, freeing up an additional $482.7 million for Nissan to explore "growth opportunities."
One of Nissan's biggest issues is that it just doesn't have a compelling lineup to offer consumers right now. For example, as the rest of the world pumps out the next hottest EV, the only two that Nissan has to offer are the Ariya and the questionably relevant Leaf. And what Nissan does have isn't exactly selling well. In fact, Nissan spent nearly every dollar it made in profits convincing Americans to buy its cars.
All of that being said, Uchida knows that there's no easy way out for Nissan here. Sales projections aren't great, inventory is crowded at best (and stale at worst), and the only way up is to make a few sacrifices along the way. It's all about survival now. It's not glamorous, but it's reality if Nissan wants to stay above water long-term.
60%: Rivian Isn't Chasing The Full Self-Driving Or Robotaxi Dream
Rivian has been out to make one thing very clear recently: it's not Tesla and it doesn't want to be Tesla. While other automakers are out to copy Tesla's playbook—swanky screens, minimalist interior, and as human-free driving as possible—Rivian has taken another fork in the road, and its divergence from Tesla extends to its approach towards vehicle autonomy, too.
While being interviewed at TechCrunch Disrupt, Rivian's Chief Software Officer Wassym Bensaid said that the automaker isn't chasing the dream of full vehicle autonomy. Not in cars, not in autonomous taxis. Not at all, in fact. Instead, the Amazon-backed upstart is focusing on vehicle autonomy like a safety feature that needs incremental improvements over time.
"We are not necessarily chasing full-self driving, we're not chasing robotaxis. Our goal is incremental improvements to the safety and convenience for customers," said Bensaid during the interview. He later continued:
“We're not chasing a specific autonomy level because we think, philosophically, that it's really about the incremental features, whether it's safety or convenience that you can progressively add to the car. In some cases, some of the automakers end up in a battle over winning standards instead of really delivering better features for customers."
It should come as no surprise that Rivian is focusing on putting the human behind the wheel. After all, it is a tech company masquerading as a car company masquerading as a lifestyle brand. Sure, its trucks can off-road, haul stuff, and tow, but the real experience along the way is the tech inside of the vehicle. And that's the software-centric approach that Bensaid keeps going on about:
“Software is, really behind the scenes, pervasive throughout the entire company. And we see Rivian as a tech company. We're doing a tech product which happens to be a car.”
Here's a counterpoint: based on ongoing feedback from Rivian owners, it probably should at least be focusing on improving its driver assistance system.
Now, to be perfectly clear, that doesn't mean shifting to focus on autonomous driving. Let Tesla have that crown. But in a world where Ford BlueCruise, GM Super Cruise, Hyundai HDA2, and other systems exist and work well, a premium brand like Rivian will have buyers second guess if they want to give up their Tesla Model Y's basic Autopilot for the upcoming Rivian R2 if the system isn't at least playing in the same stadium.
Kudos to Rivian, though. It's tough to be different in a competitive world like auto manufacturing. So many EV startups have gone the way of Fisker in recent years, and remaining competitive while not copying another OEM's homework makes it all the more difficult. So shunning autonomy in favor of the old-fashioned steering wheel? Bold. Let's see if it pays off.
90%: Re-Buttonization Of Cars Is Now In Demand
Let's talk about touch screens. Those magical, glossy rectangles smack dab in the center of our dashboards. Gone are the many buttons, dials, and switches that colonized the dash—replaced with a smooth surface that allows for seemingly endless tap-tap-tapping. Some love it, but many still yearn for the return of tactile feedback. And the word around the industry is that automakers are starting to feel a bit nostalgic for some good ol' physical controls.
Welcome to the re-buttonization.
You may have noticed some automakers already starting to bring it back. Volkswagen committed to it, Porsche tested the waters and regretted it, and Hyundai promised not to go down that road too. It turns out that after extensive consumer complaints and even regulatory bodies heavily suggesting the return of buttons, it's finally having some influence in newer (and future) cars.
Don't just take my word for it though. In a recent article by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Rachel Plotnick, an associate professor at Indiana University Bloomington and an author of a book literally about buttons, outlines the major reason for the change:
There was this kind of touchscreen mania, where all of a sudden everything became a touchscreen. Your car was a touchscreen, your refrigerator was a touchscreen. Over time, people became somewhat fatigued with that.
That’s not to say touchscreens aren’t a really useful interface, I think they are.
But on the other hand, people seem to have a hunger for physical buttons, both because you don’t always have to look at them—you can feel your way around for them when you don’t want to directly pay attention to them—but also because they offer a greater range of tactility and feedback.
"Tactility and feedback"—that's the key. The satisfying click, flip, and turn of something tangible that you can feel. Not just smashing your fingertip against some glass.
But not every automaker agrees. Rivian, for example, recently declared war on the physical button. Its Chief Software Officer, Wassym Bensaid, brings up a good point: screens are endlessly flexible when you consider that a new button is just a few lines of code away. A physical button? That's R&D, maybe even changing the die mold for an interior panel, and then sourcing physical components. From a cost-savings perspective, it makes sense and I get it.
Plus, screens are clean. Minimal, even. They're an easy way to add a premium feel to a vehicle without a whole lot of money. But not everyone likes having to tap through menus to adjust the AC, or dig behind the scenes just to flip on your footwell lighting.
So here we are—stuck in the middle of carmakers and consumers screaming "screen is king" and others chanting "long live the button." The real answer is probably somewhere in the middle: programmable, mappable buttons, maybe? Or maybe some amalgam of screen and physical controls. Hell, even look at what Xiaomi did with the XU7's add-on button bar. Let's just hope we never lose the volume knob.
100%: Has The Election Result Moved Up Your EV Purchasing Timetable?
I know there's a lot of uncertainty about the future of EVs right now. Automakers were pressing pause on some investments even before this, while Trump has vowed to undo the Biden-era EV policies.
All of that has created the perfect storm—or maybe the perfect excuse—for those who have been putting off buying a new EV. After all, right now is the best time to buy a new electric car with incentives hanging in limbo.
Has the election moved up your timetable for purchasing a new EV? Let me know in the comments.
