RS3

Make
Audi
Segment
Sedan

In the grand scheme of things, Infiniti isn't exactly a massive player in the global executive car market. After all, it's noticeably smaller in terms of size and resources when compared with its arch premium rivals, and as a result doesn't quite have the capacity to sell as many vehicles per year. Infiniti does plan on further expanding the company in a sustainable manner, however, with one of the key areas behind these growth plans being its ability to keep as many technological options open as possible.

According to Infiniti's Vice President of Product Strategy, Francois Bancon, the new variable compression-turbocharged (VC-T) engine it's developed is a key colours-to-the-mast-esque decision. By keeping internal combustion engines relevant via a system that can be used across a variety of engine sizes (allegedly as small as 1.5-liter units), the VC-T is seen as an "excellent opportunity" for Infiniti's foreseeable future. Likewise, hybrids and, in turn, full-on electric cars are very much a part of Infiniti's future development path, and Monsieur Bancon sees the integration of autonomous technology as an opportunity to make Infiniti's cars even more fun to drive.

Of course, being a fairly small company, Infiniti can't be a world-leader in every powertrain option on its own - which is where Infiniti's many partnerships come into play. For instance, Infiniti has access to parent company Nissan's EV developments, and its collaborations with the Renault F1 team allows Infiniti to further refine its hybrid tech. Perhaps most interestingly, Monsieur Bancon also revealed Infiniti is interested in "certain aspects" of the Nissan-controlled Mitsubishi's plug-in hybrid systems. Of course, as Nissan only started calling the shots at Mitsubishi fairly recently, it's too early to say what elements will be adopted, but it does give Infiniti potentially a huge amount of technological flexibility.