The brand new boss of Nissan in Australia has conceded he’s arriving while the Japanese brand is at a low ebb, but says it is going to only grow from here.
In an exclusive interview with CarExpert which can be published this Sunday, Nissan Oceania managing director Steve Milette said he plans to return the brand to growth, but this won’t occur until next yr.
“We can be going back into growth mode,” he said. “2026 is the low point, and it then increases from there on in, based on, so far as we comprehend it, future product introductions into the market, continued shift into hybrids and other forms.
“And we predict Nissan generally is a very strong brand on this market,” he added.
To attain this growth, Nissan will expand the local X-Trail mid-size SUV lineup with front-wheel drive e-Power hybrid variants plus a more rugged-looking Rock Creek grade, all of that are due on sale here in September.
Also due in September is the refreshed Nissan Z sports coupe, which can bring a brand new manual Nismo variant.
Following this, customer deliveries of the long-awaited Y63 Patrol off-road SUV are finally set to start in the primary quarter of 2027.
While Nissan hasn’t confirmed any further recent model introductions for Australia, the local launch of the Frontier Pro plug-in hybrid dual-cab ute – developed as a part of the corporate’s three way partnership with Chinese automaker Dongfeng – has reportedly been confirmed to dealers, and examples have been spied testing locally.
Nissan Australia has also previously put its hand up for a production version of the plug-in hybrid Terrano body-on-frame SUV concept revealed in April.
Earlier this yr, Nissan corporate executive for family, product and component strategy, Richard Candler, indicated the big NX8 crossover SUV could also come here.
Just like the Frontier Pro, the NX8 was co-developed with Dongfeng, but is as an alternative available as either an electrical vehicle (EV) or extended-range electric vehicle (EREV). Should it’s confirmed for this market, it could reach Australia by the tip of 2027.
Other Chinese models that might come here include the mid-size N7 electric sedan.
“Without any consideration-hand drive market, we’re there for the long run investments of all those products that you have seen in China. At the very least our hands are up; whether we get them or not, that continues to be to be confirmed,” said Mr Milette.
But Nissan Australia will proceed to tap greater than just its Chinese operations for new-model introductions.
It has confirmed it’s taking a look at the Kicks, a light-weight SUV of which a second generation was recently launched in Japan.
Nissan late last yr also filed to trademark the Arizon and Tekton nameplates in Australia. While the previous has yet to look on a production Nissan model globally, the Tekton name debuted last month on a flippantly restyled version of the Dacia/Renault Duster in-built India.
The Japanese brand has gaps to fill in its Australian lineup.
It axed two crossover SUVs earlier this yr – the sunshine Juke and the big, three-row Pathfinder – and indefinitely postponed the discharge of the brand new second-generation Leaf crossover.
These decisions were announced just weeks before Mr Milette took over as Nissan Oceania managing director on April 1, 2026. He has been with Nissan since 2017, and served because the boss of Nissan Canada for five years.
His arrival also comes after Nissan fell out of the highest 10 best-selling brands in 2025.
Nissan reached a high watermark of 79,747 sales in Australia in 2012, ending sixth overall amongst new-vehicle brands and holding 7.2 per cent of the market.
Nonetheless, its sales have been trending downwards since then, other than a bump in 2023 and 2024 on the back of redesigned models making their way here.
In 2024, Nissan finished in ninth place, before dropping to twelfth place in 2025 with 35,511 sales and a 2.9 per cent market share.
To the tip of July, Nissan has delivered 15,445 vehicles to this point this yr, down 33.7 per cent on the identical period last yr.
The Navara is down 48.8 per cent to 2612 units, though its slump could also be attributable as much to the changeover between generations as its slimmed-down model lineup.
Likewise, the Qashqai small SUV was recently updated but is down a nevertheless worrying 73.5 per cent to 824 units.
Indeed, every Nissan that was on sale from January to July in 2025 is down by double digits across the identical period this yr. That features the brand’s best-seller, the X-Trail, which had the smallest decline – a 15.1 per cent drop, to 8189 units.
You’ll be able to read our full interview with Nissan Oceania managing director Steve Milette on Sunday, August 9.
This Article First Appeared At www.carexpert.com.au
