Indian Autos blog

Many new cars are being shown at the Beijing Auto Show and while some manufacturers are forthcoming with the markets on the radars of their flashy exhibits, some don’t know whether they should.

The Nissan Sylphy Concept, previewing what maybe the next generation Sentra, could lock horns with the Corolla in about two years time in India. Nissan has earmarked 120 countries across the globe to sell this model.

Nissan has introduced a special edition Micra in France named after the famous fashion designer Josiane Maryse Pividal. Nissan claims that the inspiration of this special edition lies in an interesting quote from the designer –

“I dreamed of a carriage for the city, a real little boudoir where women feel totally comfortable to walk in an urban environment, without constraint, seamlessly, without giving up style and femininity.

While we await for the Nissan Evalia to be launched in India, its cousin sister has made an appearance at the New York Motor show. As part of its duties, the Nissan NV200 Taxi will ferry 600,000 passengers every day starting next year. The NV200 taxi will replace the iconic Ford Crown Victorias in New York.

Interesting features include:

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In this video released by Nissan on its Youtube channel, Nissan CEO Carlos Ghosn addresses the media in Japan, outlining the objectives of the Datsun rebirth and talking about its strategic importance in the Power 88 mid-term plan.

can’t see the video above? Head over to the Youtube Video page to see it directly.

Ghosn was speaking in Indonesia yesterday where capacity will be doubled by 2014 to meet local demand. Indonesia has rolled out an eco car project, which Nissan expects to account for 40% of the passenger car volumes.

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Pointers from the press conference

• Target – 8% global share of the passenger car market in 2016 and 8% profitability
• Fluctuation of currency, Thailand floods and Japanese earthquake affected production
• Nissan Sunny – 185k units already sold in China, 15k units delivered in India since September 2011, Thailand, Mexico, Brazil – car has received many awards
• 284k units of the Nissan Sunny sold in high growth markets
• Sales outlets in India now at 60 centers
• Capacity ramped up from 2 lakh – 4 lakh units at Oragadam – Indonesia, Mexico, Brazil and China – production has been expanded.
• We wanted to satisfy growth in high growth markets – Solution – it has now come to a stage where we can announce it.

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What’s not speculation -

Nissan is conducting a press conference in Mumbai tomorrow morning, hosted by the senior management members. Nissan describes the press conference as an “important strategic announcement.”

What’s speculation -

Nissan will announce the revival of the Datsun brand and also announce the broader scope of work with its LCV partner Ashok Leyland, who will play an important hand in developing the low cost vehicle, tomorrow at the press conference. Nissan and Ashok Leyland will start working on the low cost vehicle this year and the first model will roll out in 2014. Nissan could either use the Oragadam facility in Chennai where Micra and Sunny are manufactured, to build the cars or sanction a new manufacturing facility in another part of India for this purpose.

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Moments ago, Renault-Nissan CEO Carlos Ghosn has confirmed the revival of the Datsun brand, providing new details on the list of markets and nature of the product. The Datsun brand will be used expand the group’s presence in India, Russia and Indonesia with low cost models.

He was addressing the media in Indonesia where $400 million is being injected for plant expansion to double output by 2014. Ghosn said the capacity expansion was to meet demand locally and exports from the Indonesian region was a slim possibility.

click through for the whole story including comments by Carlos Ghosn

The Sunny brought some much needed sunshine to Nissan India’s sales figures. Before that only the little Micra, in its diesel avatar, was responsible for raking in the volumes. However the Nissan Sunny was perfectly positioned and carefully priced to make sure that Nissan India comes into mainstream limelight.

Then, they also brought the diesel version to India and kaboom! Highest sales figure ever recorded by Nissan India.

But the Japanese automaker is not stopping there. There is a rising trend of automatic transmissions in India. Many automakers are bringing in their automatic variants to India. Even Customers are very much tempted to forgo the stick shift. Nissan India has recognized that trend and is testing the Sunny automatic in India as reported on Team-BHP.

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