Nissan Sedan
Expected in Mid 2011
Estimated price: Rs 7lakh
The Nissan Micra is an important car for Nissan in India and the company has a lot resting on the success of the Micra. Nissan India have gone to great lengths by doing a lot of marketing activity in shopping malls and key consumer touchpoints to promote not just the upcoming Micra, but to also spread awareness and visibility of the Nissan brand. They have also managed to cross over a thousand bookings for the Nissan Micra last week and since Nissan India started production of the Micra in May earlier this year at their swanky facility in Chennai, they should be able to cope with the initial demand spike and deliver the cars quickly.
Now, Nissan will launch the Sunny by the end if the year. The Nissan Sunny should be available with a diesel engine from the Renault stable, the same engine that was used on Logan.
Design:
The Nissan Sunny will be based on the same Micra platform and will have parts in common. We have seen the Indica/Indigo, Swift/Swift DZire, Polo/Vento hatch/sedans combinations. Now, even Nissan joins the bandwagen.
Powertrain:
The Nissan Sunny will be powered by a 1.5-litre dCi, which is basically the same oilburner that powers the Renault Logan. Renault and Nissan have jointly invested in the Chennai plant, and the duo already have a joint venture and to share technology. Nissan already uses Renault engines on its X-Trail. This diesel powerplant is a 8-valve 1.5-litre dCi engine (code name K9K) and is Renault’s top selling engine with almost 900,000 units manufactured in 2008 (only in Spain and Turkey) and this engine is available with several power ratings (65bhp to 110bhp) in other markets. Renault claims the engine design to be simple, low friction and have a superior cost-to-performance ratio. The Micra sedan dCi engine powering the Mahindra Renault churns out 65bhp and a torque of 160Nm@2000rpm.
competition:
The Nissan Sunny will compete with the Mahindra-Renault Logan, Maruti Suzuki Swift DZire and the Tata Indigo Manza. All its competition are great value for money products, and are being offered in petrol and diesel variants.
Overall Evaluation:
The Nissan Micra sedan will be offered with a diesel engine. No questions can be raised on the efficiency of this engine, and the build quality of the Micra has been good. So Micra sedan should be a great product to own if Nissan prices it correctly.
