Nissan is planning an all-new, sub-Micra city car for launch in Europe in the early part of the next decade.
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The new model is separate from the price-competitive small hatchback Nissan will build in India in a factory jointly-owned with Suzuki for launch around 2009/10.
“We are looking at lots of different ideas for such a car,” Nissan product planning boss Carlos Tavares told just-auto at the Geneva show today (4 March).
While the model is still in the planning mix, Nissan suggests it won’t be a simple re-badge of Renault’s A-segment Twingo.
“One of the points is that the Twingo is built off the B-segment platform and is too expensive and complex for our ideas on an A-segment car,“ said Nissan.
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By GlobalDataThe global trend is for model ranges in the small city car segment to grow.
Toyota, for example, is showing the iQ here in Geneva. It’s a three-plus-one hatchback priced above the Aygo and close to the Yaris supermini.
French car-makers are already offering increasing numbers of small cars.
Citroen has the C1 city-car, C2 small three-door supermini and C3 five-door supermini all with unique sheet metal and interior designs.
Renault has the Twingo, Clio and Modus, Peugeot the 107, 207 and 1007.
Although profit margins on city cars are paper thin, Tavares believes that Nissan can go it alone with unique body panels and design differentiators to give the new model its own identity.
In that sense it will differ from the jointly developed Toyota Aygo/Peugeot 107/Citroen C1 city car trio, whose basic sheet metal and architecture are identical with marque differences achieved with badge and minor trim changes.
Whether Nissan’s new model replaces or compliments the Nissan-Suzuki model, a variant of Suzuki’s Alto, remains to be seen. If it does, the Nissan-Suzuki’s European life cycle may turn out to be relatively short, the model acting as a stop-gap until Nissan’s new design is ready to launch.
Honda tried a similar plan back in the late ‘90s when it entered the European supermini segment for the first time, importing the barely-competitive designed-for-Japan Logo in limited numbers as a stop-gap to pave the way for the all-new Jazz [aka Fit].
The scale of Nissan’s plans with its Indian-built city car is bigger. Up to 50,000 of the Nissan-Suzuki models will be exported to Europe each year from 2009/10, around 20% of output of the model from the Manesar factory in India.
Nissan is also already committed to a new electric car, due on sale around 2010, which it will sell in the main US/European/Japanese markets.
Although Nissan is exhibiting the second-generation of its Pivo concept at Geneva, the production electric vehicle will be much more conventional, featuring four seats and sized to be marketable in the US.
“The Pivo is full of ideas for a small car, but it is a concept,” said Tavares.
The replacement for the hot-selling Nissan 350Z coupe will be unveiled at the Los Angeles motor show this November, just-auto has learned.
The two-seat sports car will be smaller, more agile and faster than the outgoing model and re-badged 370Z to reflect its 3.7-litre V6. The launch had been pencilled in for Paris.
Julian Rendell
