The Nissan Murano is expected to be launched in India by the end of this year...
Nissan has announced it plans to manufacture nine new models at its plant in Chennai, which will be operational by 2010. Of the nine cars to be made in Chennai, five will be for the Indian market, with the rest being earmarked for exports.
Nissan is quite bullish on its prospects in India, and expects to sell about 200,000 cars here by 2012. ‘India is an important market for us and we have been focusing on how to localise our products and bring in more models to the market here,’ says Shouhei Kimura, MD, Renault Nissan Automotive India.
Over the next few months, Nissan will launch the Murano crossover, the new X-Trail SUV and the new Teana sedan in India. In the meanwhile, Nissan recently launched the diesel-powered X-Trail 20GT in Japan, a country where diesel cars have all but disappeared over the last decade.
The Nissan X-Trail 20GT SUV is powered by a diesel engine developed by Renault, and will be the world’s first diesel car to meet Japan's new emissions norms, which will come into effect from October 2009. These diesel engine emissions norms are said to be the strictest in the world. Apart from this Nissan X-Trail, the only other diesel car available in Japan now is the Mercedes-Benz E320 CDI, which was launched back in 2006.
