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Designing the Nissan Micra

Koji Nagano is in confident mood. During the 2016 Paris Motorshow at the world launch of the 5th generation Micra, a critical car for Nissan Europe, we asked him what influenced the new design and the key differences between this new car and the last, unloved Micra.

“We really focused on the European market with this car, and it’s aimed at the core of the B-segment. So it’s wider, sleeker, lower and bigger than the last car, which was aimed 50% at the Japanese market, and 50% at the European market,” Nagano explained. 

“The first and most important thing about designing a car is the proportion, which is really 50% of the styling. It’s what you see immediately, the first glance…so we really studied and enhanced the key proportions with this Micra, and the car’s stance: the tire to body relationship..it’s these fundamental proportions that really work with this car.”

“With Micra Gen5 Nissan’s design language takes another step: we’ve got the floating roof, the kick in the side-surface…something we started with the sedan concept and Maxima in the US and the Murano, so that’s a consistent theme that we’re developing.”

With this car’s focus clearly on driving dynamics and fun, we asked Nagano how it fits with a larger autonomous driving strategy? “With autonomous driving, I think the changes are likely to be very rapid in the industry, and so we must be flexible. Ultimately we pursue the dreams of the customers and aim to embody them into our vehicles.”

“I personally don’t think that in the future we’ll be driven around in anonymous autonomous boxes..there will be a transition period, so we’ll have to be flexible about how we might use our vehicles—car-sharing for example. New technology and new ownership models together may push us towards a future where the way in which we use our vehicles will be very different.”