Nissan Will Axe 10 Percent Of Its Products Following A Catastrophic First Half Of 2019

Nissan has had a rough go at the whole making and selling cars thing this year, as evidenced by the company's June financial statement released Tuesday afternoon and covered by Automotive News.

The report indicates that Nissan's global production shrank by 10.9 percent in the first half of calendar year 2019, as compared to the same period in the prior year. Similarly, global vehicle sales are down 7.9 percent, and total exports from Japan are down 17.8 percent. None of this looks real good for Nissan.

Nissan's 1st financial quarter of 2019, ending June 30, isn't looking great either, as the statement indicates a drop in net income of 94.5 percent over the same period last year. Nissan says of the massive profitability decrease, "[it] was negatively impacted by the decrease in revenues and external factors such as raw material costs, exchange rate fluctuations and investments to meet regulatory standards."

The Japanese automaker has already got to work slashing some of its more niche vehicles from the lineup, like the Rogue Hybrid, and the 370Z Roadster. Nissan's plan for the future includes the unceremonious dumping of about 12,500 employees, and a reduction in production capacity by about 10 percent within the next two years.

Nissan says that it is investing money to be ahead of the curve in the electrified and full EV field. It is also spending gobs of capital on advancing and rolling out driver assistance systems under the ProPILOT moniker, and investments in Google's Waymo autonomous driving unit.

So which models will Nissan get rid of to make its 10 percent drop in production capacity feasible? We are already questioning the existence of the Maxima, so perhaps that would be a good start.

The whole market looks ungood, but Nissan seems to be taking the hit the hardest. How will this play out?