Nissan has an alliance with Renault on the global front and in addition to it , it has been present in a Joint Venture with Ashok Leyland as well in India to make its presence felt in the commercial vehicle department. The end result is that Ashok Leyland gets to rebadge Nissan cars to enter the passenger vehicle segment whereas Nissan gets to enter the commercial vehicle segment. This 50:50 partnership in the joint venture is going to bear a lot of fruits this year.
The Joint Venture between the companies had resulted in the birth of the ‘Dost’ LCV which has managed to sell around 35,000 units in 2012-13. It was launched to compete with the Tata Ace and to rival other Tata and Mahindra LCVs, the joint venture will be bringing in a 13 seater LCV this year which will be a 13 seater people mover. It will be brought by September October this year and will look to dent the sales of the Tata Magic.
And the Joint Venture will not stop at it. It will launch more products in the LCV department to give it a strong footing. Another offspring of this Joint Venture will be the Ashok Leyland Stile which will go on sale later this year. It is a rebadged and a slightly better styled Evalia which will be aimed as a airport shuttle and BPO pick-up vehicle mainly, but will be available as a personal vehicle as well. It will be positioned below the Evalia.
Another LCV named as the ‘Partner’ will also be announced by the time 2013 ends and it will come in passenger as well as a goods carrier version. When the automobile industry is facing a slowdown on the whole, the LCV segment has instead shown a growth of 15 percent which is a positive sign for the industry. The Joint Venture will look to give the companies a strong hold over the LCV segment which has been lead by Tata for quite a while.
