Japanese automaker Nissan on Wednesday announced the commercial launch of its much-awaited compact car Micra, aggressively priced between Rs.3.98 lakh and Rs.5.29-lakh (ex-showroom Delhi), a move that could intensify price-war in the premium hatchback segment.
The nationwide sales of Micra, which has already received over 2,000 bookings, will commence from Thursday.
Equipped with multiple first-of-its-kind features including intelligent key with immobilizer, a push-button engine start-stop system and electric foldable mirror besides other safety and luxury features, Micra will come with 1.2-litre, 3-cylinder petrol engine and available in three variants — entry model XE (Rs.3.98 lakh), mid-level XL (Rs.4.69-lakh) and top-end XV (Rs.5.29-lakh). Nissan Micra also promises fuel efficiency of 18.06 km a litre. The carmaker also announced a host of customer care and service schemes.
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“The Nissan Micra is the right product at the right time that will offer the customers a good means of urban mobility with a complete package of performance, features, safety and comfort. We expect Micra with its latent advantage and its unique features to do well in the Indian market and carve a niche of its own compared to other competitive models in this segment,” said Nissan Motor India Managing Director and CEO Kiminobu Tokuyama. Interestingly, Nissan has adopted a uniform pricing policy across the country to offer a fair and equitable benefit to customers all over India.
Micra is being produced at the Chennai plant of its joint venture with French parent Renault — Renault Nissan Automotive India Pvt. Ltd. The joint venture is investing Rs.4,500 crore in the plant, which will have an annual capacity of up to 4-lakh units annually. In the first year, 80,000 units of Micra will be produced for domestic and export markets. The car will be exported to over 100 nations, including Europe, the Middle-East and Africa.
Stating that Nissan planned to launch diesel version of Micra by the end of this year, Mr. Tokuyama said: “After the diesel version, the sedan will come on the same platform next year.”
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According to Abhijeet Pandit, Vice President (Sales, Marketing & After-Sales), Hover Automotive India, “We are planning to increase our dealer networks at a rapid pace. We will be having 20 dealers operational across India by July 2010, which will be more than 30 by the end of this fiscal year.”