Nissan has gone concept car crazy

Nissan loves a concept car. This much we know already. But now it’s really outdone itself by revealing not one, but four of them at the same time.

The first is the already-previewed Chill-Out concept; a “mobile heaven” based on the same CMF-EV platform that’ll underpin the forthcoming Ariya crossover. Bi-fold doors aside it’s the most conventional of the lot, possibly because Nissan is planning to build just such a car at its plant in Sunderland in the not-too-distant future.

The rest all make use of Nissan’s future solid-state battery tech, which the company reckons will be cobalt-free and as cheap to make as your average combustion-powered car by 2028.

The Max-Out is a two-seater convertible, with a low centre of gravity and limited body roll making it dynamic in corners, so says its creator. Meanwhile the passenger seat will fold flat to boost cargo space because, you know, reasons.

Then there’s the Surf-Out, a go-anywhere pick-up with a humongous load bed for, you guessed it, surf boards. Finally there’s the Hang-Out concept, which is essentially a mobile living room that lets you work on the go and then bed down for a movie night with a theatre-style seating layout.

While there’s no info yet on performance figures or battery sizes, we do know that the trio use the same e-4ORCE dual-motor powertrain that’ll appear in the Ariya.

All of this is in aid of Nissan’s Ambition 2030 plan, which will see some £33 billion invested in electrification over the next five years. The firm says it’ll have 23 electrified models - including 15 battery-electric cars - on sale by the start of the next decade, by which point it wants less than half of its sales to come from combustion vehicles.

Naturally battery production will be ramping up too, with Nissan aiming for 52GWh of annual capacity by 2026 and 130GWh four years later. By the time 2030 rolls in, ‘virtually every new model’ will be fitted with next-generation LIDAR systems to enable some degree of autonomous driving.

“We are proud of our long track record of innovation, and of our role in delivering the EV revolution,” said COO Ashwani Gupta. “With our new ambition, we continue to take the lead in accelerating the natural shift to EVs by creating customer pull through an attractive proposition by driving excitement, enabling adoption and creating a cleaner world.”