Nissan to build rival for Golf
Industry commentators and car buyers alike are discussing Nissan's plans to rival the ever popular Volkswagen Golf, with a revamped Almera type model.
Nissan moved away from the mid sized family market, ceasing production of its Almera and Primera models to concentrate on city superminis, crossovers and 4X4 vehicles. This move was driven by uninspiring sales in the small family car sector, with Ford's Focus and Volkswagen's Golf overtaking Nissan's offerings.
Nevertheless, this change in strategy has proved to be short-lived as Nissan's global product chief Andy Palmer was cited in Car Magazine as saying that ''there is a live upstream project - it has to be different to the Golf and that's a challenge.''
In recent years, the Japanese car manufacturer has concentrated on developing its electric hybrid model, the Leaf, proving the innovative nature of the company. Latest cars such as the Juke and Quashqai have shown off the firm's design ethos, with cutting edge, modern creations.
In light of the Daimler-Renault-Nissan co-operation agreement signed last week, Nissan is seeking to covert 90 per cent of global market segments, currently reported in CAR to be at the 84 per cent mark. Despite this thirst for development, Nissan has stated that it will not move into Renault's remit and vice versa.
The Renault-Nissan alliance was originally formed in 1999 and has been a successful commercial partnership, linked by cross shareholdings. The link up has allowed both companies to increase their market shares across the world by around 10 per cent.
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