2025年4月より、日産自動車株式会社のCEOに就任したイヴァン・エスピノーサ氏。
日産の今後の人材登用・育成は？日本市場でのラインナップ拡充は？復活させたい車名は？
今回は『くるまのニュースTV』で直撃インタビューした様子（前編）をお届けします。
※今回の取材は2025年10月7日に撮影されたものです。
■くるまのニュースの記事はこちら！
日産の新型「リーフ」発表！ 8年ぶりの全面刷新で「流麗クーペSUV」に進化！ メーカー初の“ドアハンドル”＆「ガラスルーフ」採用！ “新開発パワーユニット”搭載の「3代目」が10月17日から予約開始へ！
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日産自動車株式会社
https://www.nissan.co.jp/
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Don’t News. Well, first of all, I want to congratulate her for the achievement and the great results that that uh that she showed. And second, I I do know she’s a car lover, so I always welcome to have a car lover uh close. So, I would love to have the chance to uh to get to meet her, understand what she likes, some cars, what she doesn’t like. And of course, being a car lover, I’m sure she will be supportive of the industry. Uh and we can have some uh some good collaboration together. Um On weekends, when I have a weekend, uh I play tennis sometimes. Um I play golf sometimes and sometimes I play music. So I I’m a drummer and uh I play also guitar. So uh this is how I spend my my leisure time when I when I get it. I’m a very curious person. So I’ve done many things in my life like playing tennis. I played ice hockey when I was young. Uh I played the drums. I played the guitar. Uh I played golf. So um I like to explore things all the time and uh I have a very strong sense of curiosity. So this is normally what I do lately in Japan playing tennis or playing golf. Sometimes playing music. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Of course. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. On weekends I normally drive by myself. I have a a fair lady um that I it’s a left-hand drive because I brought it from from the US. Uh the reason was I love this car. It it has a very strong link with myself because this is one car I discovered the 300 set when I was like maybe 15 years old. And this is a car that showed me the different face of Nissan, a face of performance and a face of strong engineering. Uh and I loved I fell in love with this car and this is car was one of the reasons why I joined Nissan. Then uh through the years past I I worked in Nissan and then I had the chance to work in this latest generation. Um so I really wanted to have one but when we started the production and we launched the car um the back orderer in Japan was very long. So I didn’t want to you know take a car from one of our customers. So I said like no no no don’t disturb customers. I will bring one from the US. So, I called the dealer in California and I asked them, “Please send me a car to Japan.” And they were like, “Oh, what? But this car just arrived from Japan.” I know, but I need this car to go back. So, and this is what I’m driving here actually every day in Japan. Yeah. Well, I think we need to monitor everyone’s performance and uh this applies to every individual in the company and in the organization. Uh Nissan has traditionally been a performance focused organization and we continue to be. Um I think the importance is to balance performance and to balance continuity as well because you cannot just change everybody overnight because you lose the momentum of what you have started. Uh but my my policy is simple is just to monitor performance of individuals. uh make sure individuals have the right values that values that are aligned with the organization that we want for the future which is having a company that is breaking the silos, a company that is speedy, a company that is determined to achieve the vision that we have set together um and individuals that are ready to work and collaborate openly with each other. This is what we’re trying to achieve and as I said this will apply to every individual in the organization. Again, I think we don’t have a an individual talent problem. As you said, we have a very strong engineering uh arm. Uh we have very talented designers. We have very talented financial people. I think what Nissan was lacking is breaking the barriers across functions and having common goals. We are as we as I said earlier as we are a performance-driven organization. We used to set performance indicators individually and these performance indicators set individually we’re making people to compete against each other rather than thinking of a common goal. What we’re changing is having a common goal so that every individual can give its best to achieve customer satisfaction uh performance of a car and in the end happy customers. So this is a bit what we are trying to achieve in the new restructuring and reorganization that we’re putting in place. common goal is simple. We want to have happy customers. Yeah. In the end, I think also one of the issues that we had before is we were focusing too much on the financial objectives. And financial objectives should be a consequence, not the main target. The target is to have happy customers, customers that love Nissan. customers that are, you know, very satisfied and smiling every time they’re buying a Nissan product or experiencing our services. Once you achieve that, you ensure that customers will come back and repurchase and then as a consequence, you will have a profitable organization. So, this is a bit the shift we’re putting into the way we we think and look at business. We’ve been uh uh exploring how to do this. Um it’s a competitive um segment and it’s a segment in which as you said we are coming late if we come. So we’re exploring smart ways of doing that because we’ve been trying for a couple of years to find the right formula to bring something that is appealing and that helps us bridge between the small compact cars and the Serena class. uh but we have failed as a company. So we are looking at uh different new ideas of how we can capture these customers because I also don’t want to come only with a a meto offer. Uh so we are exploring how we can imagine the future of this segment and trying to come in the next wave of of product development. So this is what we’re considering for the moment. I think I think we have opportunity to increase the the lineup in Japan. I think we are a bit restricted particularly in the lower end. I think uh the starting price that we have after Rrooks uh our note starting price is a bit high versus what you see in other brands. So I think we have some opportunity to to cover better there. U we spoke about the step in between compact car and Serena compact minivan. So this is some space that we should also maybe think about. Uh and then we have uh other opportunities beyond. I think we also have opportunities above uh our X-trail and area. I think we have products like patrol that can come and fit the market very well. Uh we have Elrand which will be renewed quite soon and this is another you know good good product that can help us drive the brand and help us also uh turn some good business. Um so we have several opportunities in the lineup. At the same time I I wouldn’t like to make the um the lineup too broad because it complicates uh the operation at the dealer floor. So in the end you need a balance a balance in which uh dealers can manage the uh training and the CA uh experience and treatment of customers in the woodway while at the same time they have enough choice for the customers to buy cars. So it’s in the end a balance in between the two having uh enough offer but at the same time not giving too much offers so that customers can get confused or CAS can get confused. Yeah. Well first of all they are expecting us to come back and to be strong. Um and they expect us to keep bringing the bright product that we have been known for. uh they they always remind me of how um strong their love for the brand is and that they are waiting for us. So this is the usual comments I get is we are waiting for the next Nissan car. So they are really really uh passionate about our brand uh and they are really passionate about what we’re able or capable of doing. So we will continue to deliver these promises to our customers. we will continue to deliver great product. Uh and as I said, the main focus that we have now is exactly this to focus on making good cars because this is what makes a a car company strong and this is why we are you know focusing our efforts in the short term. Yeah. Well, for for me there’s many good cars, but good cars are the cars that have a clear character. a car that when you drive you understand who this car was built for and it’s consistent across it doesn’t need to be a sports car. It can be any car. Um it can be an SUV for example that is designed for outdoors. But then if this is the case when you sit in the car you should feel that the materials were for example designed to be friendly with the outdoors so that if you have your shoes wet or something you are not you know making it dirty all the car. Uh but that the car is ready for this because it was thought like that that it has durable materials that uh it has a very reliable powertrain so you can go long distance if you go to the outdoors uh that you have a very flexible cargo space. So all these things should be very consistent and this is what makes a car good. Then there is you know special types of cars or special segments. When you talk about uh sports cars it becomes a little bit more complicated because the performance plays the actual performance of a car plays a very strong role. And here you start learning about different let’s say capabilities of each of the companies. And when you drive sports cars from different companies you can understand where their strength is. if they’re a strong company on powertrain or they’re in a strong company on chassis control or they’re a strong company. You see, and and this is what I like about cars that uh you can make a story behind a good car. You can really understand what the engineers were thinking about it and how the designers approach the packaging of the car. uh what the planners were thinking about the customers and how they put all this together to make a good strong concept and then deliver a concept that is very in line with what they were imagining at the beginning. This is for me what makes a good car. A car that is consistent with what the customer you know you were targeting to deliver the car is. So this is what makes a good car. And usually you know I I can notice that when I sit in the car first easily you can understand oh this car was well thought. Then when you turn it on and you start driving maybe you don’t need to go fast. You drive it just like maybe two three minutes and then you understand this car feels good. Then you can push it a bit more and then you can really start understanding how far the detailed tuning of the car went. And for me this this experience of uh u you know starts from looking at the car getting into the car looking at the materials the sound of the car how isolated it is all these things you know they need to be very well done and very consistent. And when you have all this delivery united towards the customer in the center this is a good car. This is for me what makes a good car. I I like driving. I like driving a car. I used to serve as a car. This is how I got actually into cars. I come from a family of engineers. So my father and my grandfather were engineers and they both love cars. So since I was like maybe six or seven years old, I was helping my father changing the oil of the car, changing the brake pads, the tuning, the spark plugs. I I learned to to tune a carburetor back then. uh and um so this is what I used to do when I was maybe up to 15 years old. U then I entered engineering school and uh I I was always in in line and loving cars and uh after that you know cars started to become so sophisticated that became a bit difficult to fix by yourself. Um but uh and now I’m I’m I’m drive and I love driving cars. Every time that I have a chance to drive a car, I drive a car. Yeah. Of course, I think we have a great chance uh on two things. I think especially about Nismo, I think we have a very good opportunity on expanding the Nismo uh brand. Uh not necessarily on making more cars, but I think it’s underutilized. The value of Nismo is very strong. We have so many fans globally, not only in Japan. So many fans are actually buying aftermarket parts of Nismo to accessorize their cars. And I think there’s a lot of value there that we can capitalize, not only in terms of business, but in terms of brand, showing the the uh general public what Nissan is capable of doing uh in terms of performance, in terms of tuning, in terms of additional innovation on a base car. And and this is one of the areas that we are now thinking how can we expand and strengthen a bit more. I I would love to have a Sylvia back. I don’t know if I will ever be capable of doing it because it’s a very difficult concept to deliver, but it’s one of my favorite cars in the Nissan history, particularly the S15 with a high power uh 2 L turbo engine. This car for me is one of the best uh light sports cars that uh we made. Yeah. And um because of the chassis so light and so well tuned. So it’s such a fun powertrain combination with the chassis that I would love to try and deliver something like this. It’s very difficult because with today’s regulations and crash performance and other things having a chassis that is so light is very difficult. Uh but um this is one of the name place that I would love to bring back. At the moment is is uh difficult but uh if I ever can this is one of the name place that I would like to bring back. I I think it it can help many purposes. One is as I said this car will be a car that can help us describe the brand. Second thing that this car could potentially achieve is appealing to a younger audience. As you said, uh, one of the things as a car manufacturer you need to ensure is that you keep bringing young customers into your brand continuously. And this is not only about price. Of course, price is one area. Uh, but you also need to have something that is appealing to these young customers so that they can go and follow your brand. This is one of the reasons why I’m very from a business angle interested on the name plate. Of course, as you heard me from a pure my pure car lover side is really excited about potentially doing the Sylvia, but there’s also good business reasons to try and and pursue this avenue. But at the moment, there’s nothing we can we can share about it. It’s just a idea in my brain. Uh and I’m hoping that at some point in time we can make it happen.