Why Did Infiniti Discontinue The Q60?

In mid-2022, Nissan's luxury car division Infiniti made a major announcement about its sporty Q60 coupe. The company said it will no longer manufacture the car for 2023 and beyond, discontinuing the vehicle for the foreseeable future. This announcement also led to the Infiniti Q60 making it to our list of cars that died in 2023.

At the time of its discontinuation, the Infiniti Q60 was a relatively new vehicle, with the first-generation model being announced as recently as 2017. SlashGear reviewed the 2017 Infiniti Q60, and we mostly liked the car for its slick looks, powerful engine, and quality interior. The complaints about the car were mostly centered around its uncommunicative steering response, sluggish transmission, and needlessly complex infotainment system. Given that the car was positioned as a premium luxury coupe, the Infiniti Q60 had its task cut out right from the start — competing with the likes of the BMW 4 Series, Audi A5 lineup, and the Mercedes C-Class.

While Infiniti does acknowledge the Q60's discontinuation with a web page dedicated to the car, there is no official statement explaining the reasons behind the decision. The only official statement citing a reason was provided to Car and Driver, where an Infiniti spokesperson revealed that the Q60 was being discontinued so that Infiniti could focus its attention on more popular luxury automotive segments like crossovers and SUVs.

Looking at the current Infiniti lineup, this reason certainly looks plausible, given that the company currently only sells a single sedan vehicle in the U.S.: The Infiniti Q50.

Infiniti's current lineup of cars for the U.S. market primarily consists of crossovers and SUVs like the QX50, QX55, QX60, and QX80. With the aforementioned Q50 sedan being the last remaining sedan in the company's lineup, Infiniti is evidently focusing its efforts on the SUV segment primarily. That being said, a glance at the sales figures of the Infiniti Q60 sheds some additional light on another plausible reason for the company to pull the plug: the Infiniti Q60 wasn't selling well for the company.

The best-ever sales figures posted by the Q60 were in 2018, when Infinity managed to sell a healthy 8,405 units of the vehicle. Since then, however, the sales numbers have been on a constant downward spiral. In 2019, the sales dipped to just 5,043 units. In the pandemic years of 2020-2021, the numbers slid even further; hitting 2,793 and 2,729 units, respectively. A year later, in 2022, Infinity only sold 1,846 units of the vehicle. With Infinity left with an unsold inventory of the Q60 at the time of its discontinuation, the company was able to sell as many as 1,681 units of the car in 2023. In fact, so far, in 2024, 52 units of the Q60 were sold in the U.S.

To put these numbers in perspective, in 2018 — the peak year for the Infiniti Q60 — BMW sold 31,379 units of the 4-Series, Audi sold 25,777 units of the A5, and Mercedes sold over 54,000 units of the C-Class sedan. With most of its competition faring much better, it almost seems as though the writing was on the wall for Infiniti's luxury coupe.