Nissan showed the battery-powered Infiniti LE concept at the New York International Auto Show in April 2012, and said then that a version of the five-seat sedan would be on sale within two years.

Andy Palmer, executive vice president of Nissan and in charge of global product planning, said in an interview that Nissan now sees advances in electric-vehicle technology just over the horizon that are worth waiting for. He didn't specify what the advances were.

"Certain technologies that we see now, which we didn't see two years ago, are going to be available in a time frame that was relatively close to where we were going to introduce the Infiniti," Mr. Palmer said. "Rather than miss those opportunities, and then have to reconfigure the car to adopt them in its life cycle, what we wanted to do is to bring those from the beginning."