Nissan's Vinay Shahani confirms Infiniti version of Rogue, hybrid powertrains are coming 'soon'

When Vinay Shahani was considering returning to Nissan after 11 years away, he had one non-negotiable demand... the company had to get serious about its luxury sister brand Infiniti.

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"I said, are we serious about Infiniti or not? Because if we're not serious, I'm not coming back to this company," Shahani told Daily Dealer Live hosts Sam D'Arc and Yossi Levi. "It was that important for me."

Driving the news: Now, 18 months into his return as Senior VP of Marketing and Sales, Shahani is delivering on that commitment with some surprising product news. An Infiniti version of the Nissan Rogue is coming, and the brand is also getting hybrid powertrains.

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"I'm very pleased to tell you that the next generation Rogue, which will debut next year, will soon have an Infiniti version that will follow," Shahani revealed. "Most importantly, we'll have hybrid for both of those vehicles, for the Nissan side and the Infiniti side."

Why it matters: An Infiniti version of the Rogue could give the struggling luxury brand access to Nissan's highest-volume platform while capitalizing on the popularity of the compact luxury SUV segment. Combined with U.S. production advantages and simplified dealer operations, this could be Nissan's most comprehensive strategy shift in years.

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“In order to be successful as a mainstream brand, you have to have a strong luxury brand. It's very hard to make it work if you don't," he explained.

But lately, Infiniti's lineup has withered to essentially two vehicles: the QX60 and QX80.

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"For whatever reason, somebody took their eye off the ball on the product side," Shahani admitted.

So, he instituted a new rule for product development. Every time Nissan develops a new vehicle, his team asks: What's the Infiniti version going to be?

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"That needs to be part of the vernacular of how we operate moving forward," Shahani said.

Yes but, the Rogue isn't Infiniti's only incoming product.

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"We have the QX65, which will debut later this year. We'll show a concept version of that at Pebble Beach," Shahani confirmed.

Meanwhile, tariffs have pushed Nissan to reallocate incentives away from imported vehicles toward domestically-produced models like the Rogue.

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"We dialed down some of the rebates that we had on the Mexican products as well as some of the Japanese products. And we dialed up what we needed to do to really go aggressive and max out the production on key models like Rogue," he explained.

But between the lines: Making this strategy work requires fixing Nissan's relationship with dealers, who have complained about the automaker's retailing approach.

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"We took all 67 dealer-facing programs that we had in play. We went line by line. And we killed roughly a third of those programs," he explained. The criteria was simple: "Does it help us sell cars? Does it help you make money? Does it help us take care of the guests? And if it doesn't do those three things, then it's on the chopping block."

Nissan also simplified dealer metrics from 22 KPIs down to one: retail sales. The new approach, called Nissan One, launched in June.

Bottom line: If Nissan can execute this strategy while keeping dealer operations simple, Infiniti could genuinely compete with the likes of Acura, Audi, and Lexus in just a few short years

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