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REPORT: Nissan working on Tata Nano-like cheap car strategy
India's Tata Nano has seemingly shown the world's remaining automakers that it's possible to build a small, inexpensive car for emerging markets that's still profitable. You can reportedly count Nissan among the companies paying close attention and the Japanese automaker reportedly has plans to launch a new small car platform in Thailand, India and China starting in March of 2010.
The new vehicle architecture is called V (as in Versatile), and it's been in development since 2005. According to drive.com.au, the car will sport 18-percent fewer parts than current Nissan compacts and as many components as possible will be sourced from local areas.
Crucial to the success of the program is a massive number of sales – a whopping one million vehicles per year by 2013, which would represent nearly a third of all Nissan's sold in the last three months. To make that goal a reality, sales in Europe and the United States are also planned, possibly as early as 2011.
[Source: drive.com.au]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
summazooma 9:48AM (11/02/2009)
Little brother to the Dacia Logan?
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JSams4131 9:48AM (11/02/2009)
Worst worded AB article title ever?
2013? Good luck with that...
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nagmashot 10:00AM (11/02/2009)
makes no sence at all why should Renault (owner of Nissan by japanese law!) plan a second cheap car brand?
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Mercennarius 12:27PM (11/02/2009)
You obviously don't know what you're talking about. Nissan/Renault are in a joint partnership with each owning a percentage of shares in one another.
nagmashot 1:45AM (11/03/2009)
@Mercennarius
befor claiming other people don´t know what they are talking about better inform yourself..
calling it a alliance is consmetic eye washing...
Renault owns 44.4% of Nissan stocks with FULL VOTE RIGHT, Nissan owns only NO VOTE RIGHT stocks of Renault and they own only 15%...
Renault is by far the largest stock holder of Nissan
Renault has bought the stocks for over $3 billion
Renault has injected $3.5 cash into Nissan in 1999 to safe it from bankrup and to obtain effective control of the company under Japanese law..
by japanese law Renault is the OWNER of Nissan...
there is no alliance of partners between Renault and Nissan... Renault owns Nissan and tell them exactly what they have to do...it is a fake alliance like it was between Daimler and Chrysler
David Ederer 10:14AM (11/02/2009)
GM used to have a cheap car strategy. It worked for 60 years and then imploded.
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James 11:25AM (11/02/2009)
"The new vehicle architecture is called V (as in Versatile)..."
How about..Vendetta.
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TonyInMI 11:34AM (11/02/2009)
Finally someone gets it! Seems the lessons from the Ford Model T and the Volkswagen Type 1 would be more apparent.
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J. Fisher 4:18PM (11/02/2009)
........maybe Nissan's V steering column won't go bad like the Nano's
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Scrape 5:38PM (11/02/2009)
I thought they already had a cheap car policy. Have you been in a Nissan Versa? Talk about cheap. And a Altima interior that falls apart in two years...
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RWD 7:45PM (11/02/2009)
the interior of the versa or altima , is as the same cheap feel as a bmw 325 ci or a porsche boxster , it sure is not the best , but i could live with it , dont you think ?
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carazoocars0 9:21AM (11/03/2009)
All car makers are trying to expand in India. As a result, all the car makers are coming with inexpensive small cars.
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frugalsun 2:11PM (11/03/2009)
Nissians car looks like a wanna be action figure.Nissan has a lot of catch up to do. The Tata Nano is a game changer . Doubt they be able to catch the Indians.
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