Nissan India is planning to launch a compact SUV that will rival the Hyundai Venue and Maruti Suzuki Brezza in the “B-segment” or compact SUV segment. The company held a roundtable meeting with its managing director Rakesh Srivastava in Delhi at which it showed a sketch of what it plans to introduce.
This SUV will be launched in the first half of financial year 2020-21, which means it will come in before September 2020. This will slot in just under the Nissan Kicks, which is the company’s best-selling vehicle at the moment.
Nissan sold 4,776 units of the Nissan Kicks SUV, which competes with the Hyundai Creta, in 2019. That’s not really big numbers though, considering the Hyundai Creta sells twice that number every month. However, Nissan is getting set for the long haul in the SUV segment.
Nissan India’s managing director Rakesh Srivastava says the company has a strong lineage in SUVs globally, with the likes of the Nissan Pathfinder, Qashqai, Juke, Rogue, and Patrol in different markets.
The new compact SUV will be designed in Japan. It will likely use Nissan’s new CMF-A platform (on which the Renault Triber is built). But that’s just speculation as no other details of the SUV were shared.
Given India’s love for SUV’s and the segment growing the fastest in India, its no wonder that every manufacturer is targetting the SUV segment. Nissan hasn’t had much luck with its other offerings in the hatchback and sedan space – with the Nissan Micra and Nissan Sunny selling in minuscule numbers.
Nissan, despite having the Leaf electric hatchback in its global lineup, is still evaluating its use-case for the Indian market. The Leaf has sold 450,000 cars globally already since its launch, but in India, Nissan will find it tough to meet the right price point.
The company says it will upgrade all its vehicles to BS-VI emission norms before April 2020. At the moment, it’s still selling BS-IV vehicles.
(At The Quint, we question everything. Play an active role in shaping our journalism by becoming a member today.)