When Christian Meunier returned to Nissan to lead the company's Americas division last year, he inherited problems that no auto industry leader would want.
Sales had been sliding for years, the automaker's relationship with dealers was on the rocks, and the entire organization was reeling from a scandal involving its former chief executive's arrest and flight from justice.
Meunier is starting to see a glimmer of a turnaround. In May, U.S. sales were up 12% year over year. "It's not that the market is getting easier, " he said in an interview. "It's that, especially in the U.S., in the last, we say, 12 months, we've had a lot of momentum, and we've been growing significantly."
Nissan still has struggles. The Japanese automaker contends with a thin Infiniti lineup, going back to the drawing board after a failed Honda merger, and overall sales being down 35% from a decade earlier. The Wall Street Journal talked to Meunier about how he aims to turn things around.
WSJ: You are aiming to make more cars in the U.S., specifically gas-powered trucks and SUVs for the U.S. market. Do you feel like the car business in general is becoming more regional? Is that a permanent shift?
MEUNIER: I think it's just the beginning.
I think there will be a trend towards more fragmentation. There are a lot of tariffs that are happening, even in Latin America. There used to be a lot more trade agreements, and now there are renegotiations of these trade agreements. And obviously, China is in the middle of all that.
What will happen with China is also a big question mark. But I have no doubt that the Chinese manufacturers, at least in our industry, are going to become more and more powerful and will end up localizing. Ultimately, "build where you sell" is going to become more and more critical.
WSJ: You've previously talked about plans to bring back the Xterra SUV. What can you tell us about that?
MEUNIER: When you have a strong DNA as a company, like Nissan had and has, it is really about durability, affordability, but also exciting products -- fun to drive, fun design, and different, edgy products.
You think about the 240Z, you think about the Maxima of the old days, you think about the old Pathfinder, you think about the old pickup...when I came back to this, I said, we need a symbol like Xterra.
We're going to bring five cars on this platform. We're going to bring a new Pathfinder, we're going to bring a new Frontier, and we're going to bring two derivatives for Infiniti.
WSJ: What do you want to do with Infiniti?
MEUNIER: It's criminal what happened to Infiniti. That brand was doing so well 10 years ago. They were really cool products, and the dealers were making a ton of money. Then, a lot of bad decisions.
The good news is we have the QX65 that we're launching right now, which is a great addition to the brand. We have the Q50, a next-generation sedan with a manual transmission, a super cool product coming next year.
And then in 2028, we'll have the QX50, which is a Rogue-derived SUV for Infiniti, which is really going to be the game-changer. There's going to be big, big volume for the Infiniti dealers.
WSJ: Hybrid sales are doing extremely well right now. Do you feel like you are a little behind getting in on that?
MEUNIER: We're very late to the party. That's clear. I think it was pretty obvious that hybrid would become the new [internal combustion engine] car, and it's happening right now.
The good news is we're bringing the Nissan Rogue Hybrid e-Power this summer. That's going to be a big booster for Nissan performance in the U.S.
WSJ: Nissan was an early pioneer in electric vehicles. You're now more focused on gas cars and hybrids. Where do EVs fit in?
MEUNIER: I think EVs are still part of the future. Is it going to be the only future? I don't think so. Maybe when the charging stations are fully established across the U.S., and especially when the cost is going down.
In May, EVs were 6% of the total industry in the U.S. Half of that was Tesla. The other half was the entire market, with a lot of discounts and with negative margins.
We need to be localized in the U.S. There's no way you can make money bringing [an EV] from Japan.
What we're looking at is two EVs, probably SUVs, that will be built in the U.S., so that we can complement our lineup of ICE [internal combustion engine] and hybrid vehicles, because we're going to need them.
Write to Ellie Davis at ellie.davis@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
June 26, 2026 15:00 ET (19:00 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2026 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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