Ariya

Make
Nissan
Segment
SUV

Nissan was the first legacy automaker to introduce a mass-produced fully-electric vehicle to the market with the first-generation Leaf back in 2011. Since then, we've seen the rise of Tesla and other mainstream brands' responses. But Nissan has been a little slow in playing catchup. That's now coming to an end.

The Japanese automaker has just announced a $500 million investment into its Canton Vehicle Assembly Plant in Mississippi to build two new EVs. One will be a Nissan, the other an Infiniti. Neither one has a name yet. A few teaser images have been released showing us the first glimpses of those vehicles that will begin production in 2025. It's hard to spot a lot of details but we can see the Nissan boasts an LED strip running the length of the hood just above the brand emblem and three smaller lines beneath it.

The Infiniti, if you look very carefully, could be a sedan judging by the faint rear silhouette. It too features front LED lighting above the logo. Nissan has not provided any details such as battery size, range, or pricing at this time.

To date, Nissan has invested $13.5 billion in US manufacturing. This latest investment will help retain some 2,000 jobs. Equally important, the investment is one of several planned in the US over the next five years. The carmaker intends to launch 15 EVs globally by 2030 and it's aiming for 40 percent of its US market sales to be EVs by that year. Earlier this month, we reported that Nissan is expected to end combustion engine development entirely, save for certain engines used in popular trucks and SUVs.

"Today's announcement is the first of several new investments that will drive the EV revolution in the United States," said Ashwani Gupta, Nissan's chief operating officer. "Nissan is making a strong investment in Canton's future, bringing the latest technology, training and process to create a truly best-in-class EV manufacturing team."

At present, Canton builds four models: the Altima, Frontier, Titan, and Titan XD. We don't know how much longer the latter two full-size trucks will be around. It wouldn't be all that surprising to see both discontinued in order to make space for the new EVs.