When Infiniti rolled out the Q Inspiration Concept at the 2018 Detroit Auto Show, not a lot of people thought that it would be such an important prototype for the company. It turns out; the Q Inspiration Concept isn’t only important in the loosest translation of the word, it’s important enough that Infiniti is using it as the basis for its future electrified vehicle platform. This new platform, according to Infiniti chairman Roland Krueger, will sit at the heart of the automaker’s future electric car lineup, which will include models that will take on Tesla, Mercedes EQ, and all other electric brands that are sprouting up these days.

This is not a drill, folks. This is really happening. Infiniti used to be one of the few luxury brands that didn’t have an official electric vehicle program in its lineup. That’s changing now because the company is going full steam ahead with the development of a new platform that will be used across its range of future electric vehicles. At the center of that push is the Q Inspiration Concept. That much was laid out by Infiniti’s big boss, Ronald Krueger, who made the announcement in China — a potential market for the range — earlier this week. “Infiniti is developing a new platform for electrified vehicles inspired by the Q Inspiration Concept car, which shows the new design language for the age of autonomy and electrification,” Krueger said. “We very much had China in mind when designing the Q Inspiration, which shows a very sporty, performance-oriented electric concept, with a much bigger interior space."

It’s unclear how many electric cars Infiniti plans to build, but we do know of at least one EV-based model that’s scheduled to arrive sometime in 2021. That timetable was actually moved back from 2019, a clear sign that Infiniti still has a lot of catching up to do with regards to building a full EV lineup.

That said, the delay isn’t going to affect the company’s goals. Right now, it’s pushing ahead with its plans to have a solid lineup of EV models in the future. We still don’t know what the first model is going to look like, but the smart bet is that it’ll either arrive as a sedan or an SUV. That seems to be the direction a lot of companies are taking with their initial EV offerings, and the company announcing in China — a market known for its vociferous appetite for luxury sedans and SUVs — is a sign that Infiniti is looking to use the market as a springboard for its EV offerings.

At this point, we know that the EV platform Infiniti is developing is based on the Q Inspiration Concept. What we don’t know is how Infiniti plans to use the platform once it’s developed. It’s likely going to be scalable in nature, though it is a bit trickier to do that considering the need to have different-sized battery packs for these electric rides.

We also don’t know if the Q Inspiration’s design is going to play a role in the styling of these future Infiniti EVs. We hope that it does because the concept that was shown at the Detroit Auto Show was stunning. At the very least, it made us hopeful that while Infiniti is behind the proverbial eight ball in developing its all-electric lineup, it knows enough of what it’s doing that it can make up for lost time.

The decision to develop an all-electric platform based on the Q Inspiration is a solid start. Now let’s see where it takes things from there.

References

Read our full review on the 2018 Infiniti Q Inspiration Concept.

Read more Infiniti news.