Datsun GO Plus production begins in Chennai

Nissan brought Datsun to India with dreams of reviving the marque and hopes of securing a good  share of the budget brand market. Datsun GO was the first line of its offensive, which was launched in February, this year. Now the company is revealing its second line of attack – the Datsun GO +. It has been revealed that the car has entered production and will be launched for the Indian market early next year. 

Datsun has started producing the GO+ MPV for dealer dispatch at the Renault-Nissan Oragadam facility in Chennai. The MPV will also be part of an extensive marketing campaign like the GO was subjected to before its launch. So people will be seeing more of this MPV towards the end of the year. These initial units will probably be used for marketing or in dealerships for promotion.

The GO+ is the company’s second model in India can seat up to seven people, in a 2+3+2 configuration. Design wise, the GO+ shares the same front end as the hatchback. The engine and underpinnings are the same as the GO hatchback. It makes use of the 1.2-litre three- cylinder petrol engine that produces 67bhp and 104Nm of torque. However since this is the larger vehicle, we expect that Nissan may increase the power. Power is transmitted to the front wheels via a five-speed manual gearbox. In India, we expect that they will also offer the GO+ with the 1.5-litre diesel engine.

Despite the extra row of seats, Nissan has ensured that the overall length of the GO+ stays below four metres, qualifying it for government’s concessions. Thus we can expect the car to be priced competitively as well. 

Datsun cars are key to Nissan’s sales strategy because they target emerging markets with the highest growth potentials. In an interview to Bloomberg, Trevor Mann, the Japanese carmaker’s top executive in charge of Datsun, revealed that while the carmaker has forecast it will raise its market share in India fivefold to 10 per cent by 2016, with Datsun accounting for as much as half of sales, the brand’s early sales reflect what’s to be expected from the normal course of doing business. Indian market, as we all know, has been experiencing tremendous growth and so Datsun will look to hold on till its roots gets deeper. 

Source: ET