NEW DELHI: Nissan’s low-cost brand Datsun may be strapped with electric versions as the Japanese car major has started exploratory work on developing affordable electric solutions for India.
The development comes at a time when the company plans to drive in its Leaf electric hatch into the country through the import route while also looking at different clean-energy solutions that can be strapped on to its existing vehicles.
‘We are just studying on what we can do,” Peyman Kargar, Nissan’s Chairman for Africa, Middle East, and India regions, told TOI when asked whether electric solutions are being developed for Datsun.
“No decision has been taken… though we are looking at mass solutions,” he said, pointing out that Nissan is keen to expand in the EV space following the focus of the Indian government on clean technology products.
One of the other cleaner solutions that the company is contemplating to introduce in India is the ePower technology. The ePower system enables a vehicle to run on a battery which is powered through a small petrol engine, thus completely doing away with the need of charging. The company is already manufacturing and selling vehicles on the ePower technology in Japan.
Company officials said that vehicles having ePower technology can give a mileage of 37-40 kilometres on a single litre of petrol.
Speaking about the plans of Nissan in India, Kargar said that the company has not managed a strong start in the country. “India is a very, very challenging market, but we had an idea about this since the beginning of our operations here.”
Nissan and alliance partner Renault manufacture vehicles at a plant in Chennai, and together have invested over Rs 6,000 crore in the facility.
Nissan and Datsun had cumulative sales of around 52,000 cars last year, and the market share in the domestic passenger vehicles segment was under 2 per cent. However, Nissan exported around 68,000 vehicles.
Kargar said that the company is “not happy” with its small share in the Indian market. “We are not as successful here, as we should have been.”
However, he said that these are early days for the company in the Indian market. “We are very new here. We understand that to succeed in India, we need to have a strong base of manufacturing, engineering with a healthy product portfolio.”
The company, which has also announced the setting up of a global digital hub in Kerala, has now started work on new cars for India. “While the Datsun brand will be targeted at the mass level, Nissan’s products will be more towards SUVs, electrification, connectivity and autonomous.”