When the Toyota Camry looks more exciting than any of its competitors, it's time for a major facelift or complete redesign for the latter. In the case of the Nissan Altima, a redesign came only in 2013. Then the new Camry was launched. It made the Atlima look dull. "Camry did something huge," stated Nissan North America's VP of product planning, Pierre Loing. "I believe they did that probably because they thought the car was not where they wanted it to be."

Loing is, of course, referring to the 2015 Camry's new sheetmetal. So in order to keep the Altima's strong sales streak going – it outsold both the Camry and Honda Accord this past December but overall yearly sales lag behind those rivals – a significant refresh is coming for 2016. "I'm not sure we're going to go to that (the Camry's) extent. But we're going to do something significant for the Altima midcycle," Loing confirmed. Along with exterior styling updates, the refreshed Altima will also likely feature technology improvements that'll boost fuel economy as well. Nissan simply can't allow for the Altima to look less exciting than the Camry.