autoevolution
 

Nissan IMk Concept EV Looks Like An Oddball Kei Car, Rides On All-New Platform

Nissan IMk Concept EV 18 photos
Photo: Nissan
Nissan IMk Concept EVNissan IMk Concept EVNissan IMk Concept EVNissan IMk Concept EVNissan IMk Concept EVNissan IMk Concept EVNissan IMk Concept EVNissan IMk Concept EVNissan IMk Concept EVNissan IMk Concept EVNissan IMk Concept EVNissan IMk Concept EVNissan IMk Concept EVNissan IMk Concept EVNissan IMk Concept EVNissan IMk Concept EVNissan IMk Concept EV
In addition to the iPhone Rose Gold paintwork, the IMk doesn’t look exactly “fashionable” as Nissan describes the e-concept it has prepared for the 2019 Tokyo Motor Show. One of 14 vehicles on display, the IMk also wants to be “the ultimate urban commuter.”

While kei cars are relevant in the Land of the Rising Sun given the country’s serious vehicle taxation and narrow metropolitan streets, what in the name of all things holy possessed the designers to come up with such a dull cockpit? Everything, from the materials to the color combination and capacitive touch buttons, gives the impression you’re in an iPhone, not a car of the future with the ProPilot advanced driving assistance suite.

“As a small EV for a new era, the Nissan IMk is designed to be at home in sophisticated cityscapes as much as in traditional Japanese towns,” declared Satoru Tai, executive design director at Nissan. Read that again, then try to understand what Satoru-san tried to explain by “sophisticated cityscapes” in the same sentence as “traditional Japanese towns.” Reading between the lines, not even Nissan understands what the IMk is all about.

This wouldn’t be the first time a Japanese automaker went bananas with a concept in order to bring something outlandish to the Tokyo Motor Show, an event of great importance to the local automotive industry. On the other hand, there’s something buried deep down inside the press release that caught our attention, namely “an all-new EV platform.”

Nissan doesn’t detail the vehicle architecture nor the modified version of the ProPilot 2.0 which was introduced in July with the 2020 Nissan Skyline. In the luxurious sedan known as the Infiniti Q50 in the United States, ProPilot 2.0 enables hands-off driving while cruising in a single lane. On-ramp to off-ramp highway driving is also possible as long as the driver first sets the destination in the navigation system. In other words, Nissan has tapped into Level 3 autonomous driving technology.

In the list of best-selling kei cars in Japan, Nissan settles for third with the Dayz which sold 141,495 units in 2018. The Suzuki Spacia and Honda N-BOX came on top, and as far as proper cars are concerned, the Nissan Note leads the charts with 136,324 units.

Given that the Dayz is nothing more than a badge-engineered Mitsubishi eK, we could see Nissan come up with a replacement on its own thanks to the all-new platform of the IMk. It remains to be seen, however, if the vehicle architecture has been engineered for multiple levels of electrification as well as ICE-only applications such as the 658-cc turbo three-cylinder powerplant in the current generation of the Dayz.
If you liked the article, please follow us:  Google News icon Google News Youtube Instagram X (Twitter)
press release
About the author: Mircea Panait
Mircea Panait profile photo

After a 1:43 scale model of a Ferrari 250 GTO sparked Mircea's interest for cars when he was a kid, an early internship at Top Gear sealed his career path. He's most interested in muscle cars and American trucks, but he takes a passing interest in quirky kei cars as well.
Full profile

 

Would you like AUTOEVOLUTION to send you notifications?

You will only receive our top stories