Two more vehicles in the dwindling sedan segment could soon disappear forever. The Nissan Versa and larger Altima sibling will end in 2025, according to a future product timeline from Automotive News. It's unclear where the information comes from, though the timeline further states a new, unnamed electric sedan will arrive in 2026.
As for Nissan proper, the automaker has nothing to say on the topic at this time. Asking for a comment on the report, a company spokesperson couldn't confirm or deny the rumor but it seems that, for Altima at least, its immediate future is still an active one.
"Altima was updated in the fall of 2022 with refreshed styling and new technology," said Nissan in an email to Motor1.com. "We are continuing to invest in the sedan segment to offer our customers great-looking cars equipped with convenient, entertaining, and safety-enhancing technologies. As we accelerate towards realizing Nissan’s Ambition 2030 vision we have many exciting plans in development, but we don’t have anything to share at this time."
While sedans are waning in popularity these days, it's worth noting that the Altima was Nissan's second-best-selling vehicle last year. 139,955 units were sold; it joined the top-selling Rogue (186,480) as the only two models to exceed 100,000 sales in the automaker's 2022 lineup. News isn't quite as rosy through the first half of 2023, as Altima sales are down 19.6 percent. That's still 63,241 units, which is still enough for second place and it's still outselling notable Nissan models like the Kicks, Frontier, and Pathfinder. One doesn't simply axe one of your best-selling vehicles without having some kind of plan in place.
Poor-selling vehicles, however, are a different story. The Versa racked up just 13,396 sales for all of 2022. It wasn't the company's worst performer – the now-canceled Maxima logged 7,110 sales, and then you have specialty models like the GT-R, Z, and the Ariya which launched late in the year.
Still, that could be grounds for issuing a death watch on the small sedan (which is also among the least-expensive new cars available in the US) but don't push that eject button just yet. Through the first half of 2023, Versa sales are up an astounding 95.8 percent. Actually, that's just 11,014 units sold, so yeah, a death watch is still acceptable.
We know Nissan, along with pretty much every automaker, is in the process of evolving for the imminent all-electric future. Whether the Altima and Versa make that transition or go the way of the Maxima in favor of new crossovers remains to be seen. But for the immediate future anyway, you'll still find these sedans at dealerships.
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