2004 Infiniti G35 on 2040-cars

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Infiniti is pulling out of Western Europe, cutting models

BEIJING — Nissan's premium brand Infiniti has announced it will exit Western Europe early next year, as it restructures its global operations and focuses on the world's top two auto markets. Infiniti said it will discontinue the Q30 sedan and the QX30 sport-utility vehicle and cease their production by the middle of 2019 at Nissan's manufacturing factory in Sunderland, England. Both models are sold globally but produced only in Britain. The QX30 is sold in the United States. The move comes as Infiniti seeks to divert its resources to markets with bigger opportunities, such as China and the United States, from a region where non-European premium brands are struggling to compete against local players such as Audi, BMW and Mercedes-Benz. Nissan also recently scrapped plans to build its new X-Trail SUV in Britain amid the uncertainty surrounding Brexit, saying it had taken the decision to optimize its investments by building the next generation model in Japan. "Western Europe remains the most challenging and competitive region for premium cars," Infiniti's chief spokesman, Trevor Hale, told Reuters. Infiniti's sales in western Europe almost halved last year to 5,800 vehicles. In addition to the tough competition, the Japanese premium brand, headquartered in Hong Kong since 2012, has struggled to effectively meet emissions and other regulatory requirements in the region, Hale said, referring to stringent Euro 6 emissions requirements and other regulatory challenges. "The commercial reality for Infiniti in Western Europe is that there is simply no visibility of a viable and sustainable business, especially given the regulatory challenges," he said. Infiniti said an exit from Western Europe will allow it to focus on its initiative to electrify a good portion of its product portfolio from 2021 and discontinue diesel offerings. The brand plans to focus more on its SUV lineup in North America, bring five new or significantly-redesigned vehicles to China over the next five years, improve quality of sales and residual value and realize more synergies with Nissan. "This is all part of Infiniti's vision to become a top challenger brand in the premium segment," it said. As it prepares to withdraw from Western Europe, Infiniti said it is working to find alternative opportunities for employees who would be affected, consulting with employee representatives where necessary and identifying opportunities for transition and training support where appropriate.

Infiniti went out of its way to make the QX30 not a Mercedes

You can complain all you want about perceived badge engineering when a company (like Mercedes-Benz) sells a platform to another brand (such as Infiniti). The reality is that most buyers won't know the difference, and they won't even realize their Infiniti is really a Mercedes underneath or that their neighbor's GLA has the same basic parts as the QX30 they just bought. What's weird to me isn't that sameness, but the places where the two cute little utes differ. These two vehicles, which are more like tall hatchbacks, use the same Mercedes 2.0-liter turbo four and seven-speed dual-clutch transmission. Infiniti adds its own throttle and transmission calibrations. The suspension design is the same, although there are tuning differences. Both come standard with front-wheel drive, with all-wheel drive an option. Fuel economy matches for the FWD models, while the AWD Infiniti lags behind the Mercedes for some reason. So they're very similar despite their different looks. And design makes sense as a point of differentiation. Frankly, they go further than a lot of vehicles on shared platforms do – further, in fact, than the upcoming Nissan Navara-based Mercedes X-Class pickup does. The QX30 has its own sheetmetal and glass to separate it from the GLA-class. You probably think one looks better than the other. If you know where to look, the signs of sameness are obvious. Most major systems and pieces are shared, like the steering wheels (with different center covers), most switchgear, and things like interior and exterior door handles. Shared parts are fine as long as the parts are good ones. On that note, how many Tesla buyers realize their steering column and stalks, plus the window switches, come from Mercedes? And does that actually matter? We'd argue no. About those differences. Many are functional, like the fact the Infiniti does not carry over the Benz's Brake Hold feature – when you roll to a stop in the GLA (or any other Benz), pressing the brake pedal firmly applies the electric parking brake until you hit the gas to move again. The QX30 has an electric parking brake, but no Brake Hold feature. Someone used to driving Mercedes models will look a bit silly standing on the brake pedal to no effect. Ask us how we know. The Mercedes gauge package is carried over, but with the Infiniti font. Makes sense, although it's off-putting at first if you've seen the original, prompting a weird deja vu. Circular dash vents are replaced by rhomboid ones.

2017 Infiniti Q30 First Drive

Audi and BMW have owned the premium C-segment for almost a decade now thanks to the A3 and the 1 Series (and 2 Series). Benz's A-Class has become less of a retiree's option and has spawned a popular (if not particularly good) sedan (the CLA) and a crossover (GLA). Down in the lower-class decks, machinery from Subaru is punching well above its weight, while Volkswagen's Golf owns the market in Europe. This all left perennial premium pretenders like Lexus and Infiniti with a problem: how to convince buyers their C-segment machinery was genuinely premium if they were based off a volume-selling donor body from Toyota or Nissan? Mercedes-Benz opened an odd window of opportunity for Infiniti. See, Benz's parent, Daimler, and Infiniti's motherships, Renault and Nissan, have had a technical alliance since 2010. A big technical alliance. So Infiniti was able to develop its hatch to sit atop the A-Class chassis, powertrain, and suspension architecture, though you'd barely know it by looking at the Infiniti from the outside. It has a style all its own, and you're not going to mistake a single angle on the Q30 for anything that comes out of Stuttgart. Nobody makes deeper cuts and curves into its metal than Infiniti. The Japanese brand claims that design is at its core, and whether you love or hate that design, it's hard to argue that point. The Q30 feels like a nicer, easier, more luxurious place than the A-Class on which its based. "Infiniti design is very three-dimensional on every panel. We want to give the sense and the feeling that every Infiniti has been made by an artisan, by hand, not by computer," the company's London-based design boss, Simon Cox, argued. Some will love it, some will hate it, and Infiniti can live with it either way. The point is that the brand is now on the field in a segment that is projected to keep growing at more than 9.4 percent globally, and it got there at a fraction of the normal cost of an all-new car, without having any easily identifiable cap tips to the Benz's far more conservative exterior design. The Benz bits are more obvious inside. Infiniti did such a good job of grafting its design ideas onto the interior hard points that it feels like a nicer, easier, more luxurious place than the A-Class, even if the Benz will be between eight and 10 percent more expensive in most markets. The dash top is clean, swooping, and stitched together beautifully.