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Welcome to The Downshift, or TDS for short—this morning’s car news from around the globe, organized for your quick-look convenience.

Here are the automotive industry and culture stories worth having on your radar as we spin up this Friday, May 22.

Australia is set to become home to one of the first NISMO Performance Centers outside Japan. “These centers will provide a direct link to NISMO’s Omori Factory in Japan, support advanced vehicle restoration programs, and feature factory-certified NISMO Meisters backed by NISMO’s global expertise,” the brand announced. They’re basically OE-supported speed shops—pretty cool! [Nissan]

Bosch will be supplying Mercedes-Benz with a “large volume” of electric motors “into the 2030s.” [Just Auto]

Toyota is playing around with the idea of a hydrogen fuel cell scooter. [CycleWorld]

The Citroen 2CV, an oddball car in America, ubiquious people mover elsewhere, and iconic design everywhere, is being revived as an inexpensive EV to be made in Italy. [Stellantis]

Charlotte Motor Speedway shared a statement from its CEO Marcus Smith on the sudden passing of Kyle Busch, calling him a “champion among champions” and a “once-in-a-generation competitor whose grit, unmistakable driving style and relentless pursuit of excellence elevated him to a place among the very best drivers in our sport.” [Charlotte Motor Speedway]

AUSTRALIA will be the first international destination for Nissan’s enthusiast-facing Nismo Performance Centres, with the first to open in Melbourne later in 2026, with expansion to other capital cities in the planner.

 

Set up to handle the retail of Nismo’s extensive catalogue of performance parts as well as OEM parts from Nissan’s restoration parts programme for its classic sports car models, the Nismo Performance Centres will also be able to offer complete engine packages for Nissan’s legendary RB26, which powered the Skyline GT-R for its R32, R33 and R34 generations, as well as install parts for customers with Nismo-certified technicians handling the work.

 

Does the Nismo Performance Centre rollout – which will eventually encompass the other major capitals of Sydney, Perth, Brisbane, and, if demand proves strong, Adelaide and Auckland in New Zealand – speak to any grander ambitions around bringing more Nismo road cars to Nissan Oceania’s showrooms?

 

Though options exist in the form of the just-revealed Nissan X-Trail Nismo, Patrol Nismo, and the all-electric Ariya Nismo, the Nismo Performance Centre (NPC) strategy centres around servicing the sizable car park of legacy Nissan sports car models – largely grey imports – and their owners.

 

According to Nissan, it’s a pool of potential customers that’s around 35,500-strong, with over 16,500 of them owning Japanese-market Skylines of various generations and grades.

 

“There is an extremely good opportunity in this market to have true Nismo expertise for our customers,” said Nissan Oceania’s aftersales director Michael Hill.

 

“When we look at the data, particularly on R32 (Skyline) and R33 (Skyline) registrations, Australians imported between seven percent of the total R32 production run, up to nearly 36 percent of all R34 (Skylines) that were ever built.”

 

Beyond Nissan’s iconic 90s-era Skylines, the NPCs will also cater to Zs, Silvias, and even more oddball Japanese Domestic Market imports like the Nissan Stagea wagon.

 

Essentially, if Nismo has parts available for a car over in Japan, the Australian NPCs will be able to sell and install those parts to local customers, removing the language, currency and shipping barriers that keen enthusiasts have had to deal with in the past.

 

The audience appears to be there, but will the Nissan Performance Centre concept be a big money-spinner?

 

Nissan says the focus is more about building a stronger brand and strengthening its link with buyers that have been loyal. Though each NPC will be co-located with an existing Nissan dealership (the first will open at Ferntree Gully Nissan in the latter half of 2026), the company isn’t treating it as an opportunity to upsell Skyline owners into a shiny new X-trail.

 

It is, however, a spearhead for Nissan’s greater ambition to establish a more global role for its Nissan Motorsports and Customisation (NMC) subsidiary, which encompasses Nismo.

 

The NPC store concept has existed for some time in Japan, where a network of 32 NPCs can be found, but following its first international foray in Australia, NPCs will open in locations in the USA, the GCC, and the United Kingdom.

 

In parallel with that, the range of road cars engineered and designed by NMC will double from five to ten, with more of them heading to international markets in the coming years.

 

In the past, only a handful of Nismo-badged models have escaped Japan’s borders, namely the Z Nismo, GT-R Nismo, Juke Nismo, Ariya Nismo, and Patrol Nismo.

 

Currently, only the Z Nismo is offered in Australia, with an imminent model update set to bring a manual transmission option and uprated brakes to sell alongside the existing auto-equipped Z Nismo.

 

While no official decision has been made, the Y63 Patrol Nismo, which is already offered in the Middle East, is understood to be too road-biased for Australian tastes, and an unlikely starter for our market.

 

“Nismo’s global expansion is about bringing the brand closer to customers in the right markets, with the right products, services and experiences,” said Yutaka Sanada, the global head of the Nismo brand and the president of NMC.

 

Ivan Espinosa, president and CEO of Nissan also singled out Australia as being a key part of Nissan’s grander global ambition.

 

“The expansion of the Nismo brand in markets such as Australia is an important step in bringing exciting experiences to customers who value performance and authenticity,” he said.