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.
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.
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.
While the Bajaj RE60 has not gone down well with the Renault-Nissan, the plans of entering the low-cost, high-volumes segment are still strong for the French-Japanese partnership.
Nissan’s Andy Palmer has told Economic Times that they are working on a new Ultra Low Cost (ULC) project with Ashok Leyland and the car should be ready by 2014. The new ULC will be priced in the bracket of 2-4 lakhs.
This is not the first time Nissan and Ashok Leyland have partnered on a project. The Dost LCV and the Stile MPV are proven examples to show these companies are working well together.
Datsun? Isn’t that the early name of Nissan in USA? Yes, indeed you are correct. The Datsun marquee showed the US markets that cars need not be serviced or repaired every two. They can be very reliable and fuel efficient at the same time. However, in 1983, a business decision was taken to kill the Datsun brand to strengthen the Nissan marquee. Now speculations are rife that Nissan is planning a revival of the Datsun brand for emerging markets such as India, Indonesia and Russia.
Why revive Datsun?
Nissan is perceived as a relatively premium brand in India. The idea is to maintain the premium appeal and introduce a low cost brand with a mass appeal. Datsun – a name synonymous with small, inexpensive cars is the ideal way to do it.
At the unveiling of the Bajaj RE60, the company’s CEO Rajiv Bajaj told reporters that they were open to talks with Renault-Nissan for the use the RE60′s platform to manufacture a compact car. Officials from Japan and France were invited to see the RE60 at the Bajaj stall in the Auto Expo. The RE60 was completely developed in-house by Bajaj with no assistance from either Nissan or Renault.
Since Mr Bajaj’s invitation, we have not heard anything from the Franco-Japanese camp.
It is now being reported in some sections of the media that the visitors are yet to confirm their interest in using the platform to roll out an inexpensive vehicle.
If you wanted to buy an Alto and thought that EON is your only alternative, you won’t hold on to that thought for much longer. Nissan India has announced plans of entering this space very soon with their own contender developed from scratch.
Nissan Compact Sport Concept at Auto Expo 2012 – Has no relation to the story
Commenting on the development, Mr Andy Palmer, Executive Vice-President -
We will look at an affordable car without a doubt. There are several sub-segments (under the Rs 3-lakh space) and we have ambitions to traverse as many of those as practically possible.
However, Nissan India is steering clear of the ‘cheapest car’ label. The company intends launch small car in a space which is dominated by Alto and has recently invited the Eon. The planned product will be critical to ramping up volumes in India and strengthening its brand in the personal buying space. The new product is targeted towards people who want to upgrade from the Tata Nano and motorcycles.
A Nissan official had earlier told IndianAutosBlog.com that one of the ways to build a car smaller than Micra was by using the V-Platform.
Nissan India may choose to pursue this ambition solely by itself or with the help of its existing allies. Considering Ashok Leyland is not interested in the personal car space, Nissan may partner with Renault in order to develop this product.
India does not have any history with the iconic Datsun brand, but that won’t really matter if the price is the talking point of its cars. Nikkei reports that Nissan is planning to revive the Datsun brand for emerging markets (India, Brazil and Russia are some well known emerging countries) and manufacture low cost cars under its banner.
Datsun cars will come out “with a price tag of around 5,000 dollars (2.22 lakh rupees)” according to the Japanese media report which does not quote its sources.
Nikkei emphasizes that the Datsun brand is brought back after its doors were closed by Nissan in 1986, to sell cars in emerging markets. It will not be a performance division (like AMG is to Mercedes or M is to BMW) or a luxury brand (like Infiniti is to Nissan or Acura is to Honda).
According to our source, Nissan is working on a car below Micra, but it may not see daylight before 2013. This will almost certainly be a Nissan branded product. Even if the Datsun project gets a go-ahead, we are not going to see it for at least another three years.
The Datsun brand could be used by Nissan to build what Japan terms as kei cars. Sister brands are not unfamiliar to India. Skoda and Volkswagen sell car made using the same components. Nissan and Renault will cooperate at the back-end on most future products including a car in the B+ Segment next year.
Will Datsun re-engineer phased out kei cars for emerging markets? Or will it work on a line of new small cars using a common, highly low-cost platform?
