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?
Nissan Motor India Private Ltd (NMIPL) didn’t have a groundbreaking month but registered better numbers compared to April with 1,588 vehicles in May 2011. It is not fair to compare sales YoY as the company did not have the services of Micra and operated purely with two CBUs and hence only 56 units were delivered.
The locally-manufactured Micra hatch has accelerated Nissan sales. The diesel variant launched in December has boosted sales considerably, but to penetrate the market deeper, Nissan needs a car under the Micra. The X-Trail, Teana and 370Z sports car put together clocked 22 units last month.
Additional numbers will come for Nissan through two channels – launch of two new products (V-Platform sedan and NV200 MPV) over the next 6-12 months and increase in footfalls at dealerships that provides more visibility to the slow-selling CBUs. Sooner or later Nissan will assemble the CBUs at Oragadam and this should bring down prices, making them an alternative to a Honda, Skoda or a VW vehicle.
Nissan began exports of the Micra last year. South Africa is the latest to join the list last month. Nissan has delivered 14,711 Micras in India since the launch in July 2010.
At the outset, Team IAB would extend our heartfelt condolences to all our friends and their families in Japan and wish them a speedy recovery. God has shown his horrific side to Japan. The devastating earthquake and tsunami that hit Japan last week has crippled its entire economy. Nature has made its point and the Indian Auto market has also felt the tremors of this disaster. Brio Delayed The much [ Read More ]
Japanese automakers Nissan and Mitsubishi announced their partnership that will see them working together on a small car project. The joint venture sees the financially troubled Mitsubishi and the highly successful Nissan brand joining forces, not for the first time however. This plan kicked off with the appointment of Nissan’s Junichi Endo as the CEO of the joint-venture, while Mitsubishi’s Senior Executive Officer will be his counterpart on the other [ Read More ]
Sources tell us the truck we spotted day before yesterday on the outskirts of Chennai city is most likely the truck Ashok Leyland and Nissan and working jointly towards.
The cabin is lifted from a phased-out Nissan mini truck and the company is conducting trials for various payloads. Readers of IAB have spotted this truck with different number of water cans on other occasions. The driver though, everytime, had plugged into his iPod while the installed equipment on-board did all the data logging for him.
Sources suggest to IAB a 1.5-liter 4-cylinder diesel engine could power this humongous mini truck. The ECU for the engine might come from Delphi while the unit’s calibration could have taken place at AVL in Austria.
There is not much available on the launch date but the pace at which this project is progressing, we think a 2011 debut is feasible.
We’ll keep a close eye on this guy.
Have you seen a similar test mule? Then why not write to me at notjustshrawan (at) gmail.com ?
The Ultra Low Cost (ULC) car project involving Bajaj and Renault – Nissan has come to a temporary standstill. The problem this time seems to be issues related with the production and branding of the car. The Bajaj and Renault-Nissan ULC car was originally supposed to hit Indian roads this year, followed by a release in International markets, a year later. But, due to delays in the execution of the project plans, the launch dates of the car kept getting pushed. The car is now scheduled for a launch sometime in 2012.
The delays in the implementation of the project plan seem to be the result of the three companies focusing largely on their individual game plans for the Indian market and thereby leading to a delay in the implementation of the ULC”s project plan.
Bajaj Auto will be handling aspects of the car such as its design, engineering, sourcing and manufacturing while the Renault-Nissan alliance will focus on the marketing and selling of the car.
Rajiv Bajaj, Managing Director, Bajaj Auto Limited -
Bajaj Auto has not finalised any production plans as of now, despite the launch of the car being less than two years away
Kiminobu Tokuyama, Managing Director and CEO, Nissan India -
We are to yet finalise production plans of the Ultra Low Cost car. No decision has been taken yet
With two of the three companies involved in the ULC car project stating that the production plans for the car have yet to be finalised, there seems to be no end to the delays that the project has been plagued with. It now seems as if the JV trio of Bajaj, Renault and Nissan will have another announcement of a delay to their ULC car project. Will this car ever see day light?
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.
