India Is The New Home Of Datsun
The revived Datsun brand will get its first plant in India. Renault-Nissan announced plans for a new factory in India, and will invest 250 million euros to build the plant.
The factory will be located in Chennai, with capacity for around 200,000 vehicles annually and is expected to come online by mid-2014. The first vehicle produced will be Datsun’s 5000 euro model, followed by an even more ambitious model priced at 3000 euros. Vehicles will be sold in India and exported to Indonesia and Russia, but the Middle East, Africa and even Europe have been mentioned as possible markets
The 5,000 euro car is expected to compete with lower end offerings from Maruti Suzuki, India’s pre-eminent auto maker. The 3,000 euro car is said to be similar to the Tata Nano – an ambitious exercise in basic transportation that ultimately flopped. Recent estimates suggest that as much as 35 percent of Renault’s global sales come from low-cost cars, specifically the Dacia range.
More by Derek Kreindler
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How can cars made in India be exported to India?
Any word on Brazil? Seemed that Tata and Fiat looked into bringing over the Nano but balked at the final pricing in BRazil would be higher than some of the lowest cost cars in the market (ford Ka, Fiat Mille, Renault Clio can all be had for under 24k reais which would appear the price that the Nano would have on arriving on our shores). Unlike the Nano, the cars mentioned are "real" cars, with functioning hatches, trunks, 13 inch wheels and 1.0 liter flex engines. In this context seems like the Tata would be a hard sell. But a 3000 euro car could probably get here under that threshold. Also, Nissan sells here the MArch that starts off at about 26k reais. This car will initiate Brazilian production next year at the first Brazilian Nissan factory. Considering all of that it doesn't seem likely. Oh, well
That 510 and the topic made me think of Shekhar Mehta - woulda made a good advertising face, perhaps. Yeah, I know he was Ugandan.
Can someone sell a $6500 car here?