Today, Nissan showed off a concept car as part of Nissan Futures, an event at its Global Headquarters Gallery in Yokohama, Japan that starts on February 4 and runs until March 1. Considering Nissan Futures is billed as an event that will show how the Japanese automaker is “shaping the future of sustainable mobility and innovative design,” you’d probably expect some sort of autonomous pod concept with a futuristic living room inside. But you’d be wrong.
The concept in question is called the Max-Out and is much cooler than a self-driving jelly bean. If it looks familiar, that’s because Nissan already revealed it in renderings that it released more than a year ago. This is its “physical debut.” Unfortunately, Nissan still isn’t saying anything about range projections or potential performance. Other than the fact that it’s electric, here’s everything the release says about the Max-Out:
Created on the fundamental concept of being one with the car, the Nissan Max-Out two-seater convertible is designed to provide a liberating sense of openness while offering an enhanced, dynamic driving experience. The Max-Out displays Nissan’s innovation to develop a diverse range of advanced and striking vehicles, with a clear vision of how they can benefit both individuals and society.
Those certainly are all words, and they are technically combined in a way that makes multiple sentences. But beyond poking fun at the fact that it reads like Chat GPT wrote that part of the press release, that’s also the kind of language automakers tend to use when a concept is a styling exercise that could influence future vehicles but will probably never go into production.
Maybe we’re wrong. We would actually love to be wrong here. Even with the changes necessary to make the Max-Out street legal and feasible to build, it would still be an attractive, distinctive car that we’d love to see on the road. And even better, it’s a convertible, which is a rare thing these days. It wouldn’t be to everyone’s taste, but the people who like it would really want it.
Please make us eat our words, Nissan. Get back at ole Jalopnik and do what we said you probably weren’t going to do. Maybe even offer it in some good colours other than white, grey, and black to really stick it to us. That would absolutely “benefit both individuals and society.” We promise.
