Hyperdrive

Nissan Hopes Spending Big on Tech Will Reverse Slide

  • Automaker aiming to revive brand image, sales with R&D focus
  • Challenge will come from big tech firms, high debt load
Nissan’s Note e-Power vehicles on display at the company’s global headquarters in Yokohama on Jan. 25.Photographer: Kiyoshi Ota/Bloomberg
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After two years of faltering sales and fallout from the 2018 arrest of ex-chairman Carlos Ghosn, Nissan Motor Co.’s newly installed management are at another crossroads: how to get Japan’s second-largest automaker out of a rut and beyond the shadow of the disgraced executive who drove its strategy for decades.

It’s a tall order, particularly considering Nissan’s hefty pile of debt, around 8.3 trillion yen ($80 billion) -- double what it had 10 years ago -- lackluster showing in Europe, and U.K. factory supply chain woes.