I try not to be biased towards one brand or another as an automotive journalist, but everyone has their favorites. I will give any brand a fair shake, though some brands might get a little more help. My tilt is less historical or geographical and more ideological. Specifically, I root for the underdog.
As is probably clear from reading The Morning Dump regularly, Nissan is an underdog brand. The new company wants to hit 1 million sales by 2027, and one key to doing that will be the long-awaited Nissan Xterra. Dealers have seen it, and they seem to like it.
Everything old is new again, and some internet boys will become the new hosts of The Grand Tour, as widely predicted. And speaking of predicted things, both Jaguar Land Rover and Volvo crashed out last quarter.
Nissan Dealers Have Gone From ‘Angry’ To ‘Hungry’
I suppose the fact that I aided in the purchase of both a Nissan NV200 Taxi and a Murano CrossCabriolet might give you the impression that I’m a Nissan fan. While I’ve had wonderful experiences in both of those cars, the shortcomings of both point to the experience the company finds itself in right now.
The Carlos Ghosn era was not perfect, even by the standards of a modern car company. There was no risk of Nissan ever becoming a Toyota, and a lot of that has to do with the steadying hand of the Toyoda family versus the fractured parentage of the Nissan-Renault alliance. There’s a chance Nissan could have been Kia or Hyundai, maybe.
That dream died with the arrest of former CEO Ghosn and American executive Greg Kelly. From that point on, Nissan was sadly destined to endure some lost years. For dealers, this meant aging products and listless leadership, resulting in a large chunk of them losing money.
The National Auto Dealers Association (NADA) annual convention is going on this week in Las Vegas, and automakers will often take this opportunity to preview new vehicles. Nissan Americas Chairman Christian Meunier told dealers he wanted to see the company get back to its pre-pandemic level of 1 million cars sold each year by the end of 2027.
According to Automotive News, Meunier also said he understood that in 2025 the dealers were “angry” and that this year they’re “hungry” for profits and products. While a lot of what Nissan needs to do is the boring/important stuff like controlling inventory and balancing incentives, none of that works without product.
One of those products was the new Xterra, and, while we can’t see it, dealers were able to share their views with AN:
The electrified off-roader is the first of five U.S.-built models on a new body-on-frame platform. The lineup will include an Infiniti variant and new generations of the Pathfinder, Frontier and Infiniti QX60.
Smith described the Xterra as a “radical-looking,” beefy, full-size truck with big tires, a muscular grille and a no-frills, rugged focus.
Charlie Hicks, CEO of Hicks Automotive Group in Texas, said the new Xterra carries the DNA of the original but has a modern twist.
“There’s an aggression to it,” Hicks said.
Last year, Meunier said he wanted a new Xterra “tomorrow,” but it sounds like it’ll actually be the second half of 2028. That feels like too long to wait. In the interim, a new hybrid Rogue probably helps out dealers and will be coming sooner. Obviously, people have taken it into their own hands to build the Xterra we all want.
I just drove a new Sentra, and a review will come soon. It’s good enough, and generally points to there being a reason for Nissan to exist other than to provide decent new cars for people with less-than-decent credit.
Internet Cars Boys To Replace Old Men On TV Show
The rumors are true, the Throttle House team and the one train guy everyone loves will be taking over The Grand Tour from the original trio of hosts (as announced in this video above).
Ever since Chris Harris translated his internet fame into a Top Gear job, this sort of thing has been expected and probably necessary. It’s not clear yet how different the show will be from The Grand Tour. Even that show changed a lot from its Top Gear–in-a-wig early format to something a little more organic and road-trip based.
While I don’t know the Throttle House guys particularly well, in our limited interactions, they’ve seemed just as friendly and funny as they do on their own channel. If you’re worried about losing Throttle House, don’t worry, James says episodes will continue.
It’ll be nice to see what the fellas can do with a third host and a little bit more money.
Volvo Will Likely Have Its Worst Day In The Market Ever
It’s bad timing to release a negative quarterly earnings report this week, as pessimism towards both Bitcoin and AI seems to be on the rise. That’s just what Volvo did, though, and it smacked the company’s stock price as CNBC reports:
The automaker, which is owned by China’s Geely Holding, posted a substantial drop in fourth-quarter operating profit, citing the impact of U.S. tariffs, negative currency effects and weak demand.
Volvo Cars said fourth-quarter operating income excluding items affecting comparability came in at 1.8 billion Swedish krona ($200.46 million), reflecting a 68% drop compared to the same period a year prior.
“We have a very challenging market, especially in China, very tough competition. All of our European colleagues have the same problem,” Volvo Cars CEO Hakan Samuelsson told CNBC’s “Europe Early Edition” on Thursday.
He added the discontinuation of EV incentives in the U.S. and China were also contributing to “a very challenging external environment.”
The previous worst day was an 11.5% drop, which makes the current level of about 24% look pretty bad.
Tata Motors Loses $386 Million On Jaguar Land Rover Shutdown
The cyberattack that shut down Jaguar Land Rover production for weeks was so devastating that the parent company, Tata Motors, lost $386 million in the last quarter alone.
As Bloomberg reports, Tata itself was slightly profitable, but its profits were dragged down by JLR:
JLR, which accounts for nearly two-thirds of the Indian parent’s sales, swung to a pretax loss of £310 million ($421 million).
The maker of Range Rover sport utility vehicles has been grappling with the fallout from last year’s cyberattack, which shut down production at all its factories for almost six weeks starting in September. The impact was so severe that the UK government was forced to step in with a £1.5 billion loan guarantee to support struggling suppliers.
Land Rover will probably be fine when all this gets sorted out, as it remains a popular and profitable brand. The future of Jaguar is a little murkier.
What I’m Listening To While Writing TMD
Bad Bunny will be playing the Super Bowl this weekend, and the song “Tití Me Preguntó” is one reason. It has over a billion views on YouTube. It’s a jam, and also a reminder that every culture shares one thing: Nosy aunties.
The Big Question
Besides a new Xterra, what else would you like to see from Nissan?
Top photo: NISMO Nick
I know it’s not going to happen, but if Nissan and friends found a way to sell the Alpine A110 in the U.S., I’d try to find nice things to say about Altimas.
Write your congressmen! They’ll probably ignore it, but at least you’ll’ve tried.
I hate to be pessimistic, but what if the Xterra arrives to a fraction of its intended market?
In large part, the off-road thing is just a styling trend. For every person who actually takes their ruggedized machine off into the woods to to outdoor stuff for a few days, there are many of those machines doing outdoor cosplay with externally mounted Jerry cans that have never held fuel.
The hardcore market will still be there, but the cosplayers who represent the majority of this market may be on to the next style trend by 2028.
SUVs are here to stay, and I don’t see the desire to have something that is/looks rugged dying off any time soon.
It will do well as long as they’re able to get the price right. If it can significantly undercut the 4Runner and Passport, and if Nissan dealers are able to offer some deals, it will sell.
SUVs in general are here to stay, but the actual capable off-road BOF vehicles require some trade-offs for off road abilities.
I don’t know that people are going to keep signing up for worse ride and road manners if they’re not benefiting from the off-road abilities.
All it takes is one hot minivan / wagon / sedan to be seen as desirable for all of those awning and rooftent poseurs to jump on the next bandwagon.
How many Wranglers do you see in the wild and how many do you think actually encounter anything more than a gravel driveway or dirt road? My conservative estimate is maybe 5%. Wranglers are loud, they get horrendous gas mileage, they ride like shit, they’re uncomfortable, and the interiors are penalty boxes.
And yet they’re absolutely everywhere and people still line up to buy them despite all of that. I probably see 5 or 6 every time I drive. I do think the types of people buying Wilderness edition Subarus or Trailsport Hondas or whatever will eventually move on to the next fad, but I doubt the market for real off-roaders is going anywhere.
Look at how much of a success the Bronco was. If Nissan can make something that’s more efficient and civilized (which seems to be what they’re aiming for) they’ll sell every one of these they make. They also don’t have the fickle fanbase that companies like Toyota do.
TRD bros are still filling their diapers over the fact that there’s no V6 in the Taco/4Runner or V8 in the Tundra/Sequoia. All of those trucks have money on their hoods now. But a Nissan XTerra? It doesn’t necessarily have the same legacy or virulent fanboys to live up to.
This depends entirely on your market, in my area most of them go off road, as do a good chunk of the Subarus.
Duh. You live in the woods. You only see vehicles that are off-road.
I don’t. I live in the suburbs of a city – but it’s a very outdoor-focused area surrounded by mountains, deserts, and lots of recreation.
Username does not track.
No one looks in the ‘burbs.
We’ll see what happens, but I feel like Nissan identifying a trend and jumping on board may be the sign of the end.
It’s like that cool bar that’s awesome and real until the douchebags show up and ruin it. Nissan may be strolling into this place like a realtor seeking names for their mailing list.
My completely unfounded take is that the majority of people who own BoF trucks don’t even know what BoF means. They just see “cool truck” and that’s all it takes.
Those are the people I’m talking about. Now they’re saying ‘cool truck.’
They could just as easily be saying ‘cool minivan’ or ‘cool hatchback’ if any manufacturer comes up with something else that’s perceived as cooler than off road trucks.
I both agree and don’t – people have been buying stuff like this since the 70’s. Cost also plays a huge part. If they can get that right, people will buy them whether they’re trendy or not.
I’m not saying the segment disappears, but it’s quite a bit inflated right now.
Everyone watched youtube videos of people exploring the wilderness in their vehicles during the pandemic and thought they would do the same. Many of them bought the vehicle and upfitted it to meet their imagined adventuring requirements. Now they’re commuting in a vehicle not optimally suited to that use and not getting into the wilderness nearly as much as they expected.
Those buyers may be shopping a different segment next time around. Or they may keep going with the offroaders. I have no crystal ball and people make illogical purchases all the time.
This. Body on frame off road SUVs have always been cool and always will be cool.
The last thing the world needs is another full-size SUV . . . but there are big profits to be made (apparently), so I kinda get why they’re headed down that road instead of creating a Rogue-adjacent competitor.
New Nissan Silvia please. S16.
Make it rear wheel drive, reliablish and an actual coupe and I swear I’ll buy one secondhand as soon as they become cheap, like I did the the S12, S13 and 350Z.
I realise making cars to cater for their fifth owners ten years later is a terrible business plan. But that’s what I want.
Just buy an FR-S / BRZ. Much better chassis (drastically stiffer than the Nissan) and the ‘weak’ engine is still more powerful than anything Nissan gave us in an S car.
The price of the 240SX did it in over here. The last S14s were priced close to $30k in late 90s dollars.
I already have a GT86 and I love it.
I’d just like more choice, like back in the 90’s.
Also they made the GR86 trunk opening even smaller, because styling, so I can’t fit my MTB into one of those.
I had an FR-S and miss it. The next purchase will probably be another one (well, GR86 or whatever they decide to call it next).
I am pumped about the prospect of a new XTerra. If your formative years were in the 2000s like mine were, it’s hard to overstate how big of a deal the OG XTerra was. That truck was everywhere and seemingly every cool person had one. It even made an appearance on the Sopranos. I remember test driving a manual one with my dad because he’s A Real One and wanted one or an FJ Cruiser. Unfortunately he wound up with neither, but looking at cars with him when I was a teenager was one of my favorite Saturday activities and vital to me becoming an enthusiast.
This is also the perfect cultural moment for it, and I think the hybrid component is forward thinking. A lot of people would love a truck like this but don’t want to deal with the abysmal fuel economy. I am one of those people. If this winds up with combined mileage in the mid to high 20s or a usable EV range I’m probably sold. Anyway I can’t wait.
What else does Nissan need? Same thing they’ve always needed-a barebones Z with the performance goodies in the high 30s. Give it the basest everything interior wise, make it manual only, and give it the differential and brakes from the performance model along with some sort of cool badge or different bumper or something so everyone knows you bought the gentleman’s spec.
It’ll suddenly sell, because that’s what it always should’ve been. It’s not supposed to be a $60,000 grand tourer, it’s supposed to be a cool Mustang alternative…and at that price it would probably steal some Toyobaru sales since those things have gotten so damn expensive. Anyway I couldn’t tell you a damn thing about Bad Bunny’s music but I do know he seems like a standup guy and is pissing the right people off, so he’s good in my book.
Also the irony in the fact that the orange man approved halftime show is featuring Kid Rock, a guy who has lyrics about sexually assaulting underage girls, is not lost on me. If you really want to feel like you need a shower the song is also called Cool, Daddy Cool if you’d care to look up the lyrics….
“It even made an appearance on the Sopranos.”
A real blaze of glory.
Greatest show of all time
The only thing that would possibly interest me from Nissan would be a reincarnation of the Datsun 510 (the “poor man’s BMW 2002). Small, light, analog, and sporting. Never, ever going to happen in these screen and electron-obsessed times.
Jaguar needs to take that final dirt nap and say they had a Hell of a run. And Volvo hasn’t been worth a damn for 25 years either, no loss if they join Jaguar in Valhalla’s Car Dealership, IMHO. And I say that as one who has owned 13 of the things. They bring nothing to the table that the Germans don’t do better for the same pricing today. When they were a cheaper, more durable and reliable alternative they had value, but those days are loooooong gone. Being Chinese makes me want to avoid them all the more. Chinese products are a necessary evil all too often these days, but I very much draw the line at buying cars from them, even if they are nominally still “Swedish”.
JLR swings from being Tata’s moneymaker to having absolutely eye-watering losses. And that’s just when things are running normally, let alone when they had to shut for a month.
This, too, will pass.
At least Tata is large enough to handle the shocks from JLR.
I’m excited to see what they do with the new X, doubly so if it’s going to be a plug-in hybrid. But after going from a 2nd gen X to a truck, I’m not sure if I’ll be willing to go back to an SUV.
The original Xterra harkened back to the original Pathfinder. I considered buying one when they were new.
One of my best friends had two of them, the only difference being the second one was a slushbox because he married a girl who couldn’t drive a stick. They were really quite good, if extremely trucky (as one should expect).
A college friend had an early 4 door Pathfinder, ’91 or so? That thing was a beast.
Another friend had one of the “smoothy” Pathfinders, not sure what year. That was a pretty good car too. MUCH more refined than the Xterra.
Yes. I looked at buying ’95 or so used, bought an XJ Cherokee instead. The Nissan was far more refined.
I still have a HUGE soft spot for XJs, my Old Man having leased a brand-new ’92 Laredo when I was in college – that thing was a rocket for the day, and so much fun off road. But I have never managed to own one, and nice ones are now so insanely expensive I can’t justify it.
Friend of mine just bought a museum quality ZJ Grand Cherokee with 40K on it for $15K. Not quite the same thing (but same running gear), but it sure is nice. He’s on his way back from South Dakota to Mass. with it – if I wasn’t crazy busy with work travel myself I would have joined him for the road trip. We work for the same company (he got me my job 20 years ago), he’s spending a few days at our huge AI deployment project in Chicago on the way. I get my turn there in a couple of weeks, yuck.
I was in Chicago for some AI training and demos in mid-December. Honestly I was not impressed, I have seen this tech for years…but some of the systems integration was interesting.
I miss my XJ and my WJ.
I am balls-deep in the AI hardware world at this point. It is 90%+ smoke, mirrors, and bullshit. But there is a HELL of a lot of money to be made in it at the moment, and my company is making it doing these deployments. We are building an “AI Factory” for a client that is an entire floor of a VERY large datacenter. Something like 3000 servers between the GPU and CPU servers, plus the insane networking and storage to back it all up. Absolutely crazy, and we have won bids for a couple more too.
For perspective – aggregate spending on “AI” last year was supposedly HIGHER in the US than *CONSUMER SPENDING*. Stop and think about THAT for a minute.
I’ve been in my industrial maintenance and engineering career for damn near 30 years. AI is a possible tool, not a panacea. GIGO is still law. I may know who you work for…
30 years in the industry here too. And you may well know of us, we are a pretty big deal for a very small company (19 years next month for me in my current role). 🙂
We were originally specialists in storage and backup, then general datacenter stuff, and now a thought leader in AI too. Good times, the only constant is change.
I owned an XJ. I made the mistake of taking off road in the washboard road deserts of Anza Borrego and it was a rattle trap ever after. For that and it’s other shortcomings if I were looking for another off road Jeep from that era I’d probably favor the ZJ. It’s my understanding it was designed to fill in most of the issues I had with the XJ (except its thirst for fuel). And IMHO the ZJ looks nicer inside and out.
If the new Xterra doesn’t go 4Runner levels of brodozer and Jeep angry-eyes, I’ll be a big fan. I much prefer the Frontier to the over-styled mess that is the Tacoma. If Nissan can position itself between the Passport and the 4Runner, I think that would be perfect. And if they hybridize, they might be able to outperform the Passport’s horrific MPG while also adding body-on-frame capability.
I think Nissan’s recipe for success is largely what they’ve been doing, but without their reliability nightmare that is their CVT. Their NA 4-cylinders are fine engines. And if they paired them with a hybrid/eCVT situation and consistently priced themselves a couple of grand under Toyota/Honda, I would consider them.
I think the guys chosen for the GT are a solid group, two Brits and a Canadian, seems like the ideal ratio to appeal to the English-speaking world. I just hope they don’t force it too quickly and let the guys actually have their own style instead of forcing them into the mold of the original three.
Not sure what I’d want from Nissan, in theory the new Z should’ve been it, but I just never warmed to it. It just gives me the impression the phoned it in by adding bloat to an old architecture and hoped you wouldn’t notice because they gave it more power. They could maybe do something like the Maverick, or maybe a rally version of the Rouge to generate some buzz.
Dear Mr. Nissan, the people yearn for the return of Sentra Se-R Spec V. There are dozens of us who wax poetically about the big block Sentra.
I’d go back further to the earlier SE-R. SR20DE and almost no weight to drag around.
I can’t wait for all the Nissan dealers to collectively shoot themselves in the foot with massive markups.
They whine and cry for vehicles they can sell, and then price themselves out of the market trying to fatten their own margins.
Came here to say this. It’s going to be the Z all over again.
I hope the Xterra isn’t really full size. It won’t be able to compete with the Chevy full sizers.
Smith described the Xterra as a “radical-looking,” beefy, full-size truck with big tires, a muscular grille and a no-frills, rugged focus.
What does he mean by “full-size truck”? Also what the world needs now is definitely not another aggressive looking SUV with a “muscular grille”
I quite like the standard styling applied to the Frontier. It modernizes truck styling from maybe 10 or 15 years ago. It doesn’t lean into whatever Toyota and Chevy have been smoking with massive angry grills and three-layered fenders. I hope Nissan is able to position itself as the less brodozer option.
XTerra was popular, partly, because it was not full sized.
I don’t think there is anything to worry about, with companies calling the Mach e and Ionic 5 types of vehicles SUVs. Full size probably just means what an SUV actually should be for up to 5 people and stuff to go places, I hope.
I want the Xterra to be long and flat enough in the back (NO 3rd row) that a 6ft tall person can sleep in the back without being diagonal or balled up.
I’m not into Bad Bunny’s genre of music but if it makes assholes mad then I’m all for it. I may just turn on the TV to check out that big half-time show!
Are the rich people that own football deciding that the attention they can get and money they can make from Spanish-speaking customers by having BB perform is worth more than the favor they can curry from America’s Top Cheeto and money the can make from MAGA customers by NOT having BB perform? That feels encouraging, on some level.
I have no interest in Handegg or Bad Bunny but I’d tune in the halftime show just out of spite. Afterwards I’d go back to more entertaining pursuits such as watching paint dry.
That’s exactly what I intend to do.
All Nissan had to do was federalize the Xterra they already make for the middle east and China.
Glad to see a return to the AM Dump! Yesterday’s delay made me nervous. The best part of waking up is Hardi in your cup!
Seriously. Hard to explain to my boss my lack of productivity because the dump is late and I can’t start my day without it so I just refresh the Autopian for several hours.
“There’s an aggression to it.”
Sweet. Can’t get enough aggression these days.
From somewhere deep in the shadows, Neon says “Hi.”
Right?? We are so overdue here for a sweeping change of mindset
It was a different era. We were happier then.
With the Yaris’ bubbly headlines “it’s a car”
And when the new Xterra arrives, the dealers will ADM it to the moon.
Just build the iDx already
Came her to post exactly this, even after all these years.
https://www.hdcarwallpapers.com/nissan_idx_nismo_2-wallpapers
I recently was at a trailhead when a black Nissan NV3500 passenger van drove up and a family of 9 got out of it. It looked cool (I had never seen one before) and had the V8 and AWD. Nissan missed the boat by not promoting it as a Suburban alternative.
Unfortunately, it was too ugly to be successful.
I have no idea who Throttle House is, but I’ll give them a chance. I hope they have the same 3-way dynamic that the original guys had. If they’re all the same age and “dude bros”, it won’t work.
I really liked Chris Harris on TG, I watched some of it on Netflix. Even if I couldn’t understand most of what the one guy said.
I would recommend watching some recent throttle house videos. They have a similar “goofy antics with real car knowledge” vibe that made Top Gear and Grand Tour so successful. They are one of the few YouTube channels I follow regularly
I hope they hybrid on the xterra will be optional and the standard v6 will be available.