Nissan et Renault veulent faire des voitures pour la classe moyenne indienne

Source : Economic Times

Japenese car maker Nissan is co-developing a new small car platform for developing markets along with its alliance partner Renault, joining a growing list of global car makers seeking to exploit India’s strengths in the volume car business.

This new platform is specially targeted at emerging markets like India and Russia and comes as further validation of India’s emerging status as a global small car hub.

Sources close to the development have indicated that Nissan and Renault are working on a small car, most likely a B segment hatchback, which is expected to be one of Nissan’s flagship models in India. Further details about the new platform were not available.

People close to Nissan say that India may become an important manufacturing hub for the new small car as Nissan is known to be targeting big volumes in its India facility.

Easy availability of finance, increased salaries, higher proportion of double income households, a higher propensity to spend and little improvement in public transportation have led to a boom in India’s mini and compact car segments. Accounting for over 75% of passenger car sales last year, the small car segment is poised for a major expansion with a slew of new models waiting to hit the market in the next two years.

The compact car roster currently includes Volkswagen which is putting up a greenfield plant in Pune to manufacture a derivative of its Polo model and General Motors which has already rolled out the Aveo U-VA in the hot hatch segment and is working on the Chevrolet Spark to target the mainstream small car segment. Also lined up are products like the Grande Punto from the Tata Fiat combine, the next-generation Honda Jazz and a small car from Daihatsu to be rolled out by Toyota. Besides these market leader Maruti Udyog is also expected launch a host of new cars in the segment.

“On new product issues we have no clear statement to make at this stage,” Nissan India MD Yoshie Motohiro told ET. However, she said that in the past, the alliance has worked towards greater collaboration in product development. “The policy of the Nissan-Renault alliance is that if both companies find a win-win situation, we go through with any project. So, according to that strategy, we have collaborated in the past on common platforms and powertrains.”

However, Nissan and Renault have never before jointly developed an entire model. Renault’s success with the low-cost mid-sized car Logan may have gotten its Japanese partner interested in collaborating with it for a new car for emerging markets.

Though it has set itself an ambitious target of manufacturing 3,00,000 vehicles a year in India, Nissan is yet to reveal its strategy for the country. On Nissan’s local manufacturing plans Ms Motohiro said: “As announced in November, we are still actively discussing with Renault-Mahindra whether a collaboration can be achieved. So I cannot comment on that. Nissan will take a call on the matter by March."

As announced by Renault/Nissan top boss Mr Carlos Ghosn in November 2006, Nissan is expected to join the Mahindra-Renault joint venture company for manufacturing its cars in India. But the company is also known to be exploring other options like setting up a greenfield facility to meet its requirements.