Nissan faces the music: abandons heavy duty truck program

With gas prices on the rise again, and the fact that Nissan Titan sales have never really taken off, Nissan has apparently abandoned plans to create an even larger heavy-duty truck. The Titan platform also currently underpins the big Armada and Infiniti QX56 SUVs and the next generation of those trucks will likely migrate to a substantially lighter uni-body architecture. That would make them more crossover-like and more fuel efficient.

Since a heavy duty variant would have required a unique, substantially beefed up frame, in order to handle the increased payloads and towing capacity, the low sales projections just didn't justify the development. The lack of a suitable diesel to put in the the HD Titan surely didn't help either. The truck was due in 2009-10 as was a Toyota heavy duty truck that has also been shelved for now.

[Source: AutoWeek]