As Infiniti bides time on electric vehicles, the brand is looking to spark a product revival.
If Infiniti appears to be late to the electric-vehicle party, it’s only an appearance, said brand chairman Peyman Kargar.
“We are planning to arrive by fiscal-year 2025, which is the right timing for us,” he said July 15 at a leadership roundtable at Nissan Canada Inc. headquarters in Mississauga, Ont.
Infiniti sales in Canada:
2021: 5,838
2020: 5,783
2019: 10,974
2018: 12,581
2017: 12,433
Source: Automotive News Research & Data Center
“Looking at the markets where we are and looking at the way we are renewing our models … we are not late.”
According to Jason Morrey, general manager of Morrey Infiniti of Burnaby, B.C., however, customers are inquiring about EVs now.
“We need an EV yesterday. We get customers asking all the time.”
Luxury rivals are already wading into the EV market. BMW has three models available in Canada and the Audi e-tron and e-tron Sportback are on sale. Mercedes-Benz has launched its EQS Sedan while planning the arrival of the EQS utility vehicle late this year. Others are not far behind. Production of the new Cadillac Lyriq began this spring and Lexus plans to add the RZ450e hatchback this fall.
Electrification is part of a transformation plan that Infiniti began executing in January 2021, but the priority is to counter flagging sales.
Infiniti sold 5,838 vehicles in Canada last year, according to the Automotive News Research & Data Center. That’s a 47-per-cent decline from the 10,974 sold in pre-pandemic 2019 and a 54-per-cent slide from the high-water mark of 12,581 sold in 2018.
Eighteen months into the turnaround, the updated version of the Infiniti QX60 crossover and the new QX55, a coupe-style version of the QX50, have given the brand a “healthy base,” Kargar said.
“We achieved the first phase of the transformation plan. This is rock-solid,” he said. “Now, what we are going to do in the second phase is to build on that.”
Before 2025, Kargar said, Infiniti will update its flagship QX80 large utility vehicle as well as set the stage for a pair of EVs arriving middecade that will herald in the third phase.
SALES DOWN, HOPES UP
Infiniti “nailed it” with the updated QX60, said Ontario dealer Mark Falkenberg. Infiniti Chairman Peyman Kargar said the crossover has helped give the brand a “healthy base.”
The new vehicles and the road map for the 2020s have brought a sense of optimism to Infiniti’s Canadian dealer body after several years of sluggish sales.
The vehicle lineup was “very stale” until 2021, said Mark Falkenberg, head of the Willowdale Automotive Group of Vaughn, Ont., which owns Infiniti of Willowdale and a share in Newmarket Infiniti-Nissan. But with the launch last fall of the updated QX60, he said, Infiniti “nailed it.”
“For the first time in a long time, we are enjoying more conquest sales than loyalty sales,” Falkenberg told Automotive News Canada. “That’s because the product is hitting the right category.”
Morrey is equally optimistic.
“Things are definitely going in the right direction,” he said, particularly with the launch of the QX60. “It’s going over extremely well.
“Obviously, we would like more, and that’s going to come in the near future as production improves.”
Infiniti sold 1,036 QX60s through the first six months of 2022, up nearly 51 per cent from the 687 it sold in the same period of 2021.
Falkenberg and Morrey have little doubt that the brand will begin moving higher volumes once the industrywide supply chain problems are resolved.
Inventory is likely to remain tight until at least mid-2023. Kargar said that remains the top concern for Canadian dealers, but he expects the microchip shortage to linger through at least the first half of next year.
EVS CAN WAIT
Kargar: Unlike some brands, Infiniti is taking its time rolling out electric vehicles, in the interim preparing its dealers and waiting for the EV infrastructure to develop.
Electrified models are not far down the list of dealer priorities, Kargar said. But unlike other brands that have laid out aggressive plans to electrify their lineups, Infiniti is taking a staged approach, prepping its dealers and waiting for EV infrastructure before coming to market.
Falkenberg is comfortable with the timeline.
“We’re behind the eight-ball on [EVs],” he said. “But candidly, I’m not worried.”
Unlike Morrey in B.C., Falkenberg is not seeing much demand for EVs in the Greater Toronto area so far. Instead of rushing a vehicle to market to compete in the segment immediately, he said, Infiniti will be fine-tuning its design.
“The great part about that is if we have the right product that comes out, we kick some a-- at that point,” Falkenberg said.
The performance of the QX55 and QX60 have exceeded Morrey’s expectations, but “in a perfect world, I would like to have EVs and these volume vehicles.”
Infiniti’s first EV, a sedan built alongside its Nissan counterpart at the automaker’s plant in Canton, Miss., is set to arrive in 2025. Kargar acknowledged that another EV is in the works for mid-decade, but he declined to provide details.
The brand has committed to electrifying the majority of its lineup by 2030.
