No more Suzuki-built Nissan Pixos.
Nissan has decided against sourcing any further cars from Maruti Suzuki and will instead jointly build them with minicar partner Mitsubishi, India’s Business Standard reported.
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Nissan will market these small cars across the world including in those areas which was earlier catered by the Maruti Suzuki-built hatchback Nissan Pixo which was a rebadged Suzuki A Star/Alto, the report said.
Maruti Suzuki built and exported the Nissan Pixo to Europe where they were sold at a premium compared to the Alto in those markets.
The report said Nissan decided to end the deal after Volkswagen bought a stake in Suzuki Motor.
Andy Palmer, chief planning officer, Nissan Motor Corporation said: “We have some supply relationships with Suzuki in Japan but generally speaking our small car will be basically coming from Mitsubishi.”
Maruti Suzuki stopped producing the five-seat A Star/Alto a few months ago less than six years after it was launched. Poor market response forced the company to withdraw the model along with the Zen Estilo.
In a supply agreement signed in 2006-07, Suzuki agreed to supply a one-time order of 30,000 units of the Pixo to Nissan. With demand boosted by scrappage incentive schemes introduced by several European countries at the time, Nissan had increased the order to 50,000 units.
After a gradual withdrawal of the scrappage incentive scheme, subdued market conditions and a vehicle recall by Suzuki to rectify a technical problem, Nissan orders for the Pixo dropped to 10,000 units in 2012.
