You might be familiar with the Infiniti brand name, after all, it’s been around for a long time and its cars are so dead-on reliable that they’ve been around forever, too. But what you might know is where the brand originated from. If Honda owns Acura and Toyota owns Lexus, then who owns Infiniti?

Who owns Infiniti?

For those not in the know, Infiniti is a luxury brand that is part of Nissan Motor Co., which is headquartered in Japan. It started in 1989 – around the same time that Lexus got its start – during a time when Nissan was trying to target the luxury vehicle market in the U.S., as were many other brands like Honda and Toyota. The brand started out small, producing only two cars at first – the Q45 and the M30 – and advertising them with weird, car-less commercials that mainly featured scenes of calm water and forests.

Which vehicles does Infiniti produce?

Infiniti’s vehicle lineup has always consisted of cars and SUVs with naming conventions that were made of alphabet soup. Some of the most well-known nameplates were the G37, the Q45, the QX4, the QX56, the FX37, and EX37. The sedans and coupes carried a one-letter designation along with a number signifying the engine displacement, however, that all changed in 2013.

After that year, the Infiniti lineup remained largely the same as ever, but the brand decided to update the car names to simply start with either “Q” for the coupes and sedans and “QX” for the SUVs in the lineup. For example, the G37 became the Q50 and the EX became the QX50. It might sound a little confusing at first (it does to us), but the highlight is that there are currently only five vehicles in the current lineup, which should make it easy for anyone to remember.

The current Q50 is the brand’s mid-size sedan, while the Q60 is the two-door coupe version of it. Meanwhile, the QX50 is the brand’s smallest SUV, while the larger QX60 is the mid-size version, and if you need even more space, then the QX80 is what you would get. It’s not confusing when you think of it like that.

Infiniti might become “Nissan-Plus”

Although we might the Infiniti brand name is currently a household name, as it has been since the early 90s, Forbes recently reported that the brand might soon be repositioned as “Nissan-Plus” instead. The reason for the repositioning strategy is that Infiniti is going to be considered more of an up-market version of Nissan as opposed to a luxury brand that competes with the likes of Lexus and Mercedes-Benz.

According to Motor Authority, the new strategy also includes incorporating more of Nissan’s current automotive platforms, like the Altima and Maxima, as well as the use of hybrid powertrains in order to comply with ever-stricter emissions laws in the future. It’s not entirely certain if, or when, the rebranding will happen, but it makes sense considering Infiniti sales have decreased for the past four years and almost every other automaker is heading toward a greener future. If Infiniti decides to jump on board, then it could not only save the brand but take it even further than before.