Why Nissan Is Killing the Sedan America Depends On

[00:01] to quietly murder the Altima and then less than 24 hours later Nissan called up a reporter and said actually never mind, she's fine. She's got one more year left in her. That is not how you kill a car. That is how you almost kill

[00:14] a car and then panic when the group chat finds out. But guys, let's rewind. WardsAuto ran a story quoting an actual Nissan executive saying the Altima is being retired to give the new Sentra room to grow. Nissan's own guy said that

[00:28] on the record to a trade publication. And then Nissan's PR department read the story, spit out their coffee and sent out a statement basically [music] saying our lineup and we don't have anything further to share at this time, which is

[00:41] corporate speak for please stop asking us about this. Thank you. So, somewhere between the executive's mouth and the press release, somebody at Nissan of the most iconic nameplates in American bad decision making and got

[00:55] cold feet. Because here's the thing about the Altima, it's not just a car, philosophy. It's a warning sign that appears in your rearview mirror right before it changes three lanes without a signal to make a right turn from the

[01:08] not just a car, it's an automotive looks like a piece of junk, it's got a body kit made of duct tape and unresolved beef and it will do the impossible. I mean, you've all seen that

[01:21] Altima doing a buck 10 with two donuts, three different pink colors, garbage bags for windows and no license plate. And once they pass the cop, the cop touch the radio because everybody already knows you don't pull that car

[01:35] over. You just bow your head and let it pass like a monk letting a wildfire go by. That's not really a car anymore, that's a folk legend. Now, here's the part that actually is kind of sad if you strip away the jokes for just a sec. The

[01:47] Altima wasn't always like this. When the third generation dropped back in 2001, it was actually bigger and nicer than the Maxima, Nissan's own flagship sedan, which is a wild flex for what was supposed to be the affordable option.

[02:01] People forgot that the Ultima used to have a 260 horsepower V6 in it. It used to be genuinely fun. It used to be a legitimate answer to the Accord and the Camry, not the answer to what's the cheapest thing I can get to finance with

[02:13] a 400 credit score and a pulse. So, what happened? Well, two things, and neither one of them is really the car's fault. The first thing is the CVT turned into a ticking time bomb somewhere between 60 and 70,000 mi, and

[02:28] everybody who's owned one has a story [music] that starts with, "It was fine, and then one day at a red light it just stopped agreeing [music] to go more forward." Hey guys, real quick, the giveaway for the Shelby and Supra in the

[02:40] $100,000 has ended, and well, the winners are being picked right now. But, better. So, click the link in the pinned first comment because, like Rocky who won the GT-R, like Greg who won the 100K, you can sign up to be notified and

[02:54] get 100 free entries once it goes live. So, click the link down below, go put in your email, and I can't wait to show you what we have cooking. All right, back to the show. Then, number two, and this is the real one. Nissan discovered subprime

[03:07] lending. There's an old radio jingle burned into a lot of people's brains, Universal City Nissan, where your job is your credit. That is not a joke. That's an actual slogan a Nissan dealer used to run. Translation, doesn't matter what

[03:21] you've never made a car payment in your life, we will find a way to put you in interest rate that would make a loan shark blush. So, Nissan built a car, couldn't easily get financed anywhere else, and then act shocked, shocked when

[03:38] disproportionately owned by people who also weren't keeping up with brake pad replacement or insurance premiums. That is not a coincidence. That's the business model working exactly as designed. The Ultima didn't choose the

[03:51] lifestyle. Nissan's finance department chose it for the Ultima. And look, tell you the actual engineering held up fine. Bulletproof engine, comfortable seats, and I mean genuinely, multiple people said the Ultima's seats are top

[04:04] tier. Not just for the segment, top tier, period. Like, somehow the one part part that they nailed. Parts are cheap, repairs are simple. A guy I met said he put over 200,000 mi on an '08 Ultima, and the only thing he ever replaced were

[04:19] two wheel bearings and an [music] AC compressor clutch. That is not a bad marketing problem and a driver demographic that got assigned to it by Nissan's own finance office. And then everybody made fun of the car instead of

[04:32] the spreadsheet that put it there. Anyway, reputation aside, here's what's actually happening to the lineup because there's a lot more going on here than The Versa already got the axe after 2025. The Maxima's been gone since 2023.

[04:46] That leaves the Sentra standing alone as Nissan's only American sedan, at least account is legitimately good-looking, green light to basically absorb the Ultima's spot. And apparently, the

[05:00] Ultima's dying so the Sentra can grow up, which is a weirder way to describe a corporate lineup decision than I expected from a guy with the actual job title chief product and planning officer. There's more carnage, too.

[05:12] Nissan's two planned electric sedans, American-made, previously announced, actually supposed to happen, those are dead. Not delayed, dead. Nissan's own executive said demand isn't there, and it probably won't be until 2030's

[05:24] when EV production costs finally come down. And the Rogue plug-in hybrid, the one that literally just came out for 2026, is already getting killed, too, because apparently its entire purpose was to hold the fort until the Rogue

[05:37] e-power shows up in 2027. That's an SUV with a shelf life shorter than a gym membership. Okay, so globally, Nissan's cutting 11 models total, going from 56 vehicles down to 45. They're sorting what's left over into four buckets:

[05:52] partner, which sounds less like a product strategy and more like the four stages of a group project nobody wanted to be on. But, here's the one genuinely corporate bloodletting. The next generation Skyline is coming this

[06:06] winter, and it's expected to spawn a more luxurious Infiniti version, possibly a Q50 successor, running rear-wheel drive, a manual gearbox option, and twin-turbo V6 out of the Z. That's the kind of car enthusiasts

[06:18] getting buried under a press release about an economy sedan nobody wanted to admit was already dead. And then, there is the Xterra, and Nissan's bringing it that'll share its platform with up to four other vehicles, including a

[06:33] three-row Nissan SUV and two separate Infiniti SUVs, all built alongside the Frontier. It's being described as a lifestyle vehicle with a V6, and Nissan's apparently promising to keep it under 40 grand. If they actually hit

[06:47] that price, that's the first genuinely interesting thing Nissan's announced in apology. So, what happened to everyone currently driving an Altima into the sunset with a check engine light on and baby on board sticker held on by pure

[07:00] faith? Well, there's a couple other options: the Hyundai Elantra, the Kia K4 and K5, older Hyundai Sonatas, and apparently used Tesla Model 3s are tool because you can pick one up for cheap, it's quick, and it comes loaded

[07:13] with enough screens and gadgets to make anybody feel like they upgraded, even if the actual insurance bill says otherwise. In a weird way, the Kia K5 is kind of the new Altima. And yeah, it kind of seems like the torch has

[07:25] years and we'll be doing this exact same video again with a Kia logo instead of the Nissan one. So, look, here is my honest version of the story after a couple of days of research. The Altima isn't dying because it's a bad car.

[07:38] going going you that it's reliable, cheap to fix and shockingly comfortable. It's dying because the Sentra got good enough to make it redundant, because sedans in general are getting squeezed out by crossovers and because Nissan

[07:51] around this thing that it's never going to shake, no matter how good the actual engineering underneath it was. The CVT gave people a real reason to complain and the financing department gave everybody else a reason to never look at

[08:04] somewhere out there today there is a 2016 Ultima with a spare tire donut on that's basically part of the dashboard decor at this time and a driver who is never under any circumstance using a signal and that car is going to outlive

[08:19] every single one of us and probably outlive Nissan's decision to kill it, too. Rest in peace to the official car, I'll pay you Black Friday. You'll be missed mostly by tow truck drivers. If you want to see what's exactly being

[08:31] replaced by, because the Xterra and the new Skyline might be the most decade, hit subscribe so we hit two mil by the end of year, like this video, check out some of these ideal vids. I'm Brad, this is ideal, drop a comment and

[08:44] promise me one thing, keep living the ideal lifestyle.