Nissan¡¯s aging lineup is next on the fix-it schedule as the Japanese carmaker attempts a makeover designed to save it from its worst financial crisis in a quarter century.

¡°We are entering now the phase in which we start rolling out a lot of new cars,¡± CEO Ivan Espinosa said in an interview on Wednesday at Nissan¡¯s headquarters in Yokohama. That includes reducing the bureaucratic burden of bringing fresh models to market, ¡°shortening the development process significantly,¡± he said.

¡°This is going to help us with having the right cadence of product and reacting a bit quicker to allow us to cope with all the shifting trends in the market,¡± Espinosa said.

Pressure is mounting on Espinosa, 46, to overhaul Nissan as its financial position continues to deteriorate. The collapse of talks to combine with Japanese peer Honda and a complicated relationship with key shareholder Renault has meant Nissan is going it alone. In May, the carmaker said it will downsize by cutting 20,000 jobs and shutting seven factories.

A company whose chief problem is a poor vehicle lineup now is looking to Espinosa ¡ª the man who until recently oversaw that lineup ¡ª to reinvent itself. The CEO, who was appointed to the post in March, said Nissan has plenty of product in the pipeline to help turn things around.

The carmaker has given its all-electric Leaf vehicle a facelift and updated one of its popular ¡±kei¡± minicars. Upcoming releases include new versions of the Elgrand minivan, and the Kicks ¡ª a subcompact crossover. In the U.S., Nissan will launch an all-new version of its entry-level Sentra sedan later this year and a plug-in hybrid option for its top-selling Rogue compact SUV in early 2026.

Once an automotive pioneer with the Leaf, the world¡¯s first mass-market electric vehicle, Nissan now serves as a warning for other carmakers about the risk of not adapting fast enough to rapidly changing consumer tastes. Its market-leading EV position was initially usurped by Tesla, then further eroded by fierce competition from Chinese brands like BYD.

Efforts to speed up development and launch times began 18 months ago, said Espinosa, who was responsible for product planning and global strategy before he took over as CEO in April. They¡¯re now bearing fruit and Nissan has incorporated lessons learned in competitive regions like China, where local EV makers claim the lion¡¯s share of the market, he said.

The Japanese automaker aims to reduce time frames for developing new models to 37 months ¡ª down from more than 50 months currently ¡ª to get them to market faster. But Chinese rival BYD already can turn a concept into a mass production vehicle in as few...