Like several other full-line manufacturers, Nissan’s car sales lagged in June (up 2.7 percent), as the brand’s nearly 11 percent growth was driven primarily by increases in truck sales. On the other hand, few of its vehicles actually lost sales. The Cube dropped 11 percent to 1,896 units, and the Altima fell 2.6 percent, as did Nissan’s sportscars, the 370Z (-3.5%, 892 units) and GTR (-44%, 84 units). Every truck and Infiniti vehicle was up, though, leaving Nissan with a solid, if generally weak sales month. Full numbers after the jump.
You think Japan is import-adverse? Have a look at that chart that follows, and you will see a wondrous trend: Japanese automakers are importing more and more foreign owned cars to Japan. Some of them even from the U.S. Now, the imports will increase. Not from the US, but from …. (Read More…)
While GM has problems trying to get the Volt price point to a point where customers won’t suffer a coronary (even with help from the DC sugar daddies), Nissan has a few problems of their own. Nissan is still reeling from the news that a Nissan Leaf would save you the princely sum of $361. Now, Automotive News [sub] reports another black eye on Nissan’s “Prius Killer”. Automotive News says that Nissan’s “100 miles range” may be slightly off in real world conditions. How far off? (Read More…)
Bloomberg reports that Nissan, together with the joint venture partner Dongfeng, is building a 5 billion yuan ($732m) plant in Guangzhou with the newest in automation. The factory is scheduled to open in 2012. In addition, Nissan spent about 1 billion yuan ($147m) on a second production line with the latest equipment at their Zhengzhou factory.
This is not an isolated incident. “The automation rate in China is on the rise,” said Nissan spokesman Mitsuru Yonekawa. “We need to boost productivity in China,” COO Toshiyuki Shiga said. “Just because labor costs are higher in China, we won’t be leaving.”
Undeterred by crashing European sales numbers, Nissan is forging ahead and adds – are we reading this right? – “a third shift at its British production line for sport utility vehicles, raising output 30 percent to nearly 24,000 units a month,” says The Nikkei [sub]. (Read More…)
Wasn’t there a carmageddon? Forget about it! Nissan wants to be essentially debt free for the first time in three years in the fiscal year ending March 2011, says The Nikkei [sub]. Nissan’s net cash position gauge is expected to swing from $546m in the red to about $1b in the green. (Read More…)
Whenever sales in China come up, there is an echo somewhere: “Sure, but are they making money?” “Name the average transaction cost in China.” “Profits? Everbody know profits can’t be taken out of China.” Thanks for your concern, but Nissan doesn’t have these worries. (Read More…)
No sooner had TTAC posted its list of Top Ten Automakers (by volume), than Renault-Nissan CEO Carlos Ghosn weighed in on his firms’ chances of moving on up. He tells Reuters:
Very likely this year, we should be in the top three
Volkswagen is currently in third place, with 6,290,000 units built in 2009. Nissan was in eigth place last year with 2,744,562 units (down 19 percent), while Renault came in tenth with 2,309,188 units (down 4.5 percent). Combined, the two firms accounted for 5,053,750 units, or about 1.2 billion units fewer than VW’s third-place showing (and only a few hundred thousand better than Ford, in fourth place).
A year ago I reported how Renault was using French Government money in exchange for keeping jobs in France. Then Renault landed themselves in trouble when Renault wanted to transfer production of the Clio to Turkey and the French Government made their feelings quite clear. Then they started slagging other low cost countries off. Now it appears Renault are at it again, only this time they may succeed. (Read More…)
Nissan won’t sell their much ballyhooed pure plug-in Leaf until December. But a successful launch wants to be well planned, and Nissan thinks of everything. They won’t sell you the Leaf just yet. But you can already buy the charger. If you bank account is properly charged. (Read More…)
Nissan made quite a stir in EV-watcher circles by announcing that its UK-produced Leaf battery packs would cost under $400/kWh, but as we noted at the time, those numbers are being supported by various government incentives. Now, with a new government taking over number 10 Downing Street, Nissan’s UK Leaf production incentive might be on its way out. With the UK’s new Conservative-led government facing profound budget challenges (try a $240b deficit on for size), The Telegraph reports that a $30.5m grant approved by the outgoing government could fall victim to an overarching review of new expenditures by the incoming government. And that’s just the beginning…
So much for seeing a Hyundai-branded Ram anytime soon. The company has clarified in a statement [via Reuters] that:
Hyundai Motor Co. denies that there are any current plans to bring a pickup truck of any type into the U.S. now or in the foreseeable future. Hyundai is not in discussion with Chrysler in regard to a selling a rebadged Chrysler Corp pickup truck, or any other vehicle, in the U.S
Which means that Ram will have to overcome a 20-25 percent sales slump over the last year on its own. And Hyundai will have to stick with cars, where it’s killing the competition anyway. Unless it hooks up with the other former Ram-rebadge-wannabe, Nissan. The Japanese brand is reportedly developing both full-size and compact pickups despite having had minimal success moving pickups in volume… a partnership there might benefit both.
A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about how the world largest “democracy” is being built up to a global small car hub. It seems the car world has even bigger plans for the Asian tiger cub. Business Week reports that Renault is planning to double the number of parts it gets from India. Sudhir Rao, COO of Renault’s India unit says that Renault will buy about €250m ($317m) worth of parts from the Indian subsidiary. Renault isn’t the only company that is looking to India for cost savings. Naturally, where Renault goes, Nissan follows. But Fiat and Ford are also interesting in using Indian parts. (Read More…)
Recent Comments