Predicting the future is never easy, but Nissan’s future product planner, Tom Lane, reckons it’s proving harder than ever these days.

‘I’ve been with Nissan for 16 years and I’ve never known a period quite like it,’ says Lane. ‘The US consumer is not particularly motivated by fuel economy right now, but if the oil price climbs any more that could change within the space of a month, and trying to predict when that might happen is next to impossible.’

The answer at Nissan is the ongoing development of a number of solutions for reducing CO2 emissions, including all-electric cars, which could be with us sooner than you might expect.

‘Our current thinking is that some countries will adopt a zero-CO2 limit for city centres,’ says Lane.