Renault Nissan working on a car just above Rs2 lakh to take on Nano, Alto

04 Jul 2014

Nissan's Datsun Go entry-level hatchback, Nissan and Renault now plan to offer a Rs2+ lakh car in India under the Datsun badge.

Andy Palmer, chief planning officer, Nissan Global, confirmed that a new car was in the works and would be manufactured out of India under the Datsun brand, as a volume-model in India.

The car will compete with Maruti Alto 800 and Tata Nano.

Nissan's earlier attempt to penetrate the mall car market did not quite work out with Datsun Go selling about 2,000 units a month, against projected figure of 4,000 to 5,000.

According to commentators while one of the reasons for the dismal performance of Datsun Gocould be the fact that the competition was from well entrenched models like the Maruti Alto and Hyundai Eon, and the absence of a strong dealership network.

The company now plans to put up 200 dealerships by the end of this fiscal year through March and add another 100 over the next two years.