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Infiniti names former BMW man Kruger to fill de Nysschen role

Today is turning into a big one for senior leadership changes in the automotive industry. Hot on the heels of Ferrari announcing the replacement of its chairman, Infiniti has announced the appointment of its new chief executive in Roland Krüger.
Serving until now as a senior vice president at BMW, Krüger joins Infiniti as its president as well as senior VP at parent company Nissan, reporting directly to Carlos Ghosn. Krüger had been with BMW since 1998, primarily as a regional director, having previously started his career as a designer for Mitsubishi and the Smart division at Daimler.
Krüger's appointment comes just over a week after the announcement that Infiniti's chairman Andy Palmer would be leaving for Aston Martin, and two months after the departure of outgoing Infiniti president Johan de Nysschen for Cadillac. The Japanese luxury automaker, headquartered in Hong Kong, has been in the meantime essentially operating by committee in the absence of a chief executive. The nomination of Krüger will surely bring a large measure of stability and direction as the company seeks to take a larger slice of the pie, in particular from German automakers like the one for which Krüger worked until now.

Nissan sets 2017 sales record with help from Rogue, Titan, and Armada

Nissan Group said its U.S. sales climbed 1.9 percent in 2017 to an all-time record of more than 1.59 million vehicles sold. Free pizza in the conference rooms in Nashville, right? But a closer look shows the company mirroring overall industry trends, with plenty of declining-popularity cars but also a few aging trucks and SUVs. Taken together, Nissan's trucks, SUVs and crossovers saved the day, selling an all-time high of 765,624 total units, up 15 percent from 2016. That offset a 10.9-percent drop in sales of Nissan's cars, as volume sellers like the Altima and Versa posted steep drops. Also buoying overall results was the Infiniti division, which gained 10 percent from the previous year on the strength of models like the Q60 and QX30. Nissan's record year owes a lot to the Rogue, its compact crossover, which set an annual sales record with 403,465 vehicles, an increase of 22.3 percent. Sales of the Titan, Nissan's full-size pickup, grew an impressive 141.9 percent to 52,924 units, while the Armada, a full-size three-row SUV that was all-new for 2017, also saw a huge jump in sales (154.1 percent) to 35,667. Infiniti, meanwhile, saw overall sales climb 10.9 percent on the strength of huge gains by the Q60 Coupe, which rose 170.8 percent, and the QX30 crossover, which grew almost 524 percent. That being said, Infiniti volume is relatively low. The Q60 Coupe sold a total of 40,444 units and the QX30 14,093 for 2017, while Nissan shifted 40,172 Rogues in December alone. On the car side, the Maxima did well, gaining 7.9 percent to finish at 67,627. Volume-wise, the Sentra dominated, nudging up 1.7 percent to 218,451. But the rest of the lineup mirrored industry trends for the car segment, with steep drops for the Altima (down 17 percent), battery-electric Leaf (-19.8 percent), Versa (-19.2 percent) and Juke (-48.1 percent). Several truck, crossover and SUV models are also not faring so well. The aging Frontier pickup, last updated in 2005, fell 14.5 percent, the Pathfinder slipped by 0.8 percent, the Quest minivan plummeted 55.5 percent and the upscale Murano crossover fell by 11.8 percent. A Nissan spokesman says the Quest is no longer being built for the U.S. market starting with the 2018 model year. Meanwhile, reinforcements are coming. Nissan has said it's planning a new generation of the Frontier, its entry-level pickup, but hasn't clarified when.

Infiniti all but certain to produce Q50 Eau Rouge [w/video]

These pages are full of projects that automakers have tried to get moving but never quite managed to. And Infiniti has had its fair share, particularly when it comes to high-performance models. It's tried to drum up excitement with the Infiniti Performance Line and with its partnerships with Red Bull Racing and its star driver, but models like the G37 IPL and FX Sebastian Vettel edition never amounted to a real challenge to the likes of Mercedes-AMG and BMW's M division. There was talk of a sedan version of the Nissan GT-R to wear an Infiniti badge, but those rumors amounted to even less. The Q50 Eau Rouge, however, could finally be the ticket.
The concept debuted at the Detroit Auto Show a few months ago without an engine (or at least not one we were made aware of) but with all manner of carbon-fiber aerodynamic components. It then rolled in to Geneva with the beating heart of the GT-R - a 3.8-liter twin-turbo V6 tuned to 560 horsepower and 442 pound-feet of torque - and arrived in Beijing earlier this week in an even more evolved form. And according to the chatter coming out of China (whose financial hub of Hong Kong, incidentally, serves as Infiniti's home base), it's all but certain to be approved for production.
"At this stage it would take more to stop the car getting made than to start things," says Auto Express, citing an unnamed source. The finished product would look much like the versions we've seen until now, and while it would be available in an array of colors, that metallic blood red could emerge as Infinit's signature performance color.