Next generation Infiniti Q50 sedan.

Infiniti officially mentioned a few weeks ago that a new Q50 was on its way. The new illustration above shows what the new Infiniti sedan could look like. Something that I would actually be described as “the last thing Infiniti needs right now”. Not an ugly design by any means, but a new sport sedan is really not what the brand needs these days…

From the way Infiniti describes the car, it seems that the “new” model will just be a heavy facelift version of what we’ve had since 2013. And exactly what Nissan did with the current Nissan Z, which actually uses new body panels and some new interior bits judiciously used to make the car look “all-new”.

Of course, there is no way Nissan is pouring tons of money into a brand-new V6 sedan with a 6-speed manual. This is what has been described by Infiniti US.

The new car is supposed to use the same 3.0 Liter Turbo with 400HP from the Nissan Z. And a manual transmission is a strong possibility.

A car like this will sound great to a few car journalists who will no doubt praise it. However, there is currently close to zero market for such a thing in the US. If I were an Infiniti dealer, I would be panicking right now. If that’s Infiniti’s future, the brand is in more trouble than previously thought. It seems they’ve canceled their almost-ready new EV luxury sedan for this. A quickly developed stopgap at best. A last nail in the brand’s coffin at worst.

With the death of the Ariya in the US, it seems just a matter of time until someone at Nissan wakes up and realizes an expensive V6 sedan with a 6-speed manual isn’t what Infiniti needs right now.

It seems Infiniti is stuck in time, about 20 years ago. Back when their mission was to go after German sport sedans like the BMW 3 series. The market has changed drastically since. And maybe the Infiniti brand itself is not what Nissan needs anymore…