Nissan Wants To Make Toyota NV-ous, Launches NV350 Caravan
“This is my baby,” said Nissan’s Andy Palmer last year at the Tokyo Motor Show, and affectionately patted the head of Nissan’s new NV350 Caravan. “Let’s be honest. The competitor is the Hiace. This car beats Hiace in every single way you could imagine.” This morning in Yokohama, Andy’s baby did its first steps into the rough world of light commercial vehicles.
11 long years after the launch of the previous generation of its legendary Caravan, Nissan today launched a fully redesigned Caravan, newly-named “NV350 Caravan.”
The car comes with 3 meters (9 feet 10 inches) of cargo space, the most in its class. It also comes with amenities formerly known from high-end sedans, such as push engine start, intelligent key and more.
The NV350 receives power from either a 2 liter or 2.5 liter gasoline engine. A newly developed supercharged 2.5 liter diesel engine promises 12.2 kilometers per liter ( 28.7 mpg, definitely non-EPA).
Bertel Schmitt comes back to journalism after taking a 35 year break in advertising and marketing. He ran and owned advertising agencies in Duesseldorf, Germany, and New York City. Volkswagen A.G. was Bertel's most important corporate account. Schmitt's advertising and marketing career touched many corners of the industry with a special focus on automotive products and services. Since 2004, he lives in Japan and China with his wife <a href="http://www.tomokoandbertel.com"> Tomoko </a>. Bertel Schmitt is a founding board member of the <a href="http://www.offshoresuperseries.com"> Offshore Super Series </a>, an American offshore powerboat racing organization. He is co-owner of the racing team Typhoon.
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My work vehicle is a HiAce and nobody buys these vans for styling, luxury or handling. They are bought for purely practical reasons- load space, reliability, low running costs and long life. It's all about the money, and in places where fuel costs are higher than the U.S (most of the world) the American style commercials just cost too much to run.
I took both new Toyota hiace D4D and Nissan nv350 for test drives. I purchased the nv350, in my mind it leaves the hiace for dead in every way.ive have chipped it so it now puts out 450nm instead of 356nm. it whips up to 180kph and still has more and is still cheap to run;)