Regulations killed the Nissan GT-R.
The current R35 generation Nissan GT-R will finally end production next year, ending its 17-year history. This is twice as long as the generational life cycle of many other cars, but if Nissan has its way, the GT-R will remain in production for the next decade.
This is according to Pierre Loing, Nissan's global product director, who told “Top Gear” in an interview published Friday that production would end only because of regulations.
“It has been sold for 17 years and we want to make it for another 17 years, but the regulators are giving us some problems,” he said.
The R35 GT-R was unveiled in 2007 and arrived in the US as a 2009 model. Sales in the U.S. will end with the 2024 model year, and worldwide production will end in July 2025. Sales have already ended in some markets such as Europe and Australia. In Europe, it violates noise and emissions regulations, and in Australia it fails to meet the latest crash safety regulations. Nissan spokesman Josh Clifton told Motor Authority that Nissan will also end sales in the U.S. because it can no longer meet stricter emission regulations for 2025.
Nissan has already confirmed several times that a successor, the R36, is being planned, not unusual for the GT-R, and there will probably be a gap of several years between appearances. Why the delay this time? According to Loing, Nissan is still debating whether the new car will be a hybrid or an electric vehicle.
Asked if the electric GT-R will use solid-state batteries, a technology Nissan has previously indicated will be ready for production around 2028, Roing said it is possible. He clarified this by saying that solid-state batteries would solve many of the current problems surrounding electric sports cars, such as battery weight and reduced performance due to overheating.
Last year, Nissan unveiled the Hyperforce Concept, an electric sports car powered by solid-state batteries. Nissan has not said whether this concept is a preview of the new GT-R.
By the time the new GT-R arrives, Nissan may also have a third sports car in the form of the latest Silvia. Ivan Espinosa, Nissan's head of planning, has revealed that the company is about to give the go-ahead for production of the new Silvia and that his team is already plotting the architecture for it.
