Nissan CEO says mega savings plan will fix the struggling automaker

Nissan CEO Ivan Espinosa on Wednesday said the short-term focus is to fix the struggling automaker, as it undergoes major restructuring efforts to get back on a solid footing.

"I think in the short term, the focus that we have is to fix ourselves," Espinosa told CNBC's "Squawk Box Europe."

"We are convinced that the plan is enough and robust," he added.

Espinosa, who only assumed leadership of the Japanese automaker in April, faces an uphill battle to change the tide of Nissan's whittled down fortunes.

The firm has been contending with declining sales, the transition to electric vehicles and steep global competition, particularly from Chinese rivals. These challenges have now been exacerbated by U.S. President Donald Trump's sweeping 50% global tariffs on steel and aluminum, along with other so-called reciprocal levies on individual countries that are briefly reduced under a reprieve set to expire in July.

Last month, Espinosa revealed the company's plans to slash 11,000 jobs and shut down seven plants, amid expectations of a 3% drop in sale volumes in the current fiscal year.

At the end of last year, the company fleetingly flirted with a possible tie-up with Japanese peer Honda in talks that could have created the world's third largest automaker by sales — but negotiations broke down in February.

"The size of the task is big," Espinosa said.

"Our landing was not good in 2024, and thus we have a transformation that has to come. But this is a problem that did not start like two years ago, it's a fundamental problem that we're fixing. If you take a step back, eight to 10 years ago, the company had very lofty goals for growth."

Nissan's management had previously targeted annual sales of 8 million cars per year, and, as such, the company invested heavily on capacity, human resources and capital expenditure.

Ultimately, however, the company peaked at annual sales of 5.6 million — back in 2016 — and Nissan is now running at sales of 3.3 million to 3.4 million cars per year, Espinosa said.

"We are re-sizing the company and this is why we have accelerated our efforts on cost, both fixed cost [and] viable cost. So, we have very deep initiatives under our new Re:Nissan plan and we're devoted to it,"  Espinosa said.

Tokyo-listed shares of Nissan are down 24% year-to-date.