The latest entrant to the Indian luxury car segment now, is the Infinity by Nissan. The brand is getting into the Indian automobile market latest by mid-2012 with five different variants including three SUV. However, the launch may be uncertain because Nissan wishes to get the CBD (completely break down) units to India and assemble them here. The CBU (completely built unit) will be lot more costly with the addition of the excise duty and import taxes.
Mr. Andy Palmer, Vice President, Nissan Motor Corp, sees the luxury car segment of India growing at a very high speed in the coming few years and thus the company wants to enter and benefit from this segment. At present it is manufacturing a hatchback Nissan Micra and a sedan Nissan Sunny from its Chennai based manufacturing plant in association with Renault. Inspite of an apathetic economic condition in India the luxurious car segment is a huge market for the likes of Land Rover, Audi, Mercedes, Jaguar and BMW who are achieving with a staggering sale of around 30,000 units every year. The brand Infiniti is selling like hot cakes in the current international market, with 1,50,000 units already sold worldwide.This figure is expected to go further up to 5,00,000 units in near future. Nissan expects to get hold of a big 8 per cent share of the Indian automobile market by mid 2016.
The five cars of infinity which will be coming soon to India will have two sedan Infinity G, Infinity M and three SUV Infinity Ex, Infinity Fx, Infinity QX. The expected price would be between Rs.28,00,000 to Rs.60,00,000, which is expensive for sure. If we take the lowest prices Sedan Infinity G also named G37 at Rs.35,00,000 for a brief overview under the bonnet we would find a lot of surprising things. This D-segment luxurious car has a 3696cc V6 petrol engine that gives a maximum output of 328 bhp at 7000 rpm with a maximum torque of 364 Nm at 5400 rpm. All this gives the car a mileage of 11 kmpl on the highway and 7 kmpl in the city, which is quite good. This car is also ideal for long drives down the highway with a 76 liter fuel tank in it. The 6-speed manual transmission seems a bit outdated for this kind of a machine but let the car come and we shall see how it actually performs on the Indian road.
The high end SUV Infinity QX or QX56 has a 5552cc V8 petrol engine, which generates a powerful 400 bhp at 5800 rpm and a torque of 560 Nm at 4000 rpm. Seven gear automatic transmission compliments the machine on the highway with a 98 liter fuel tank. The seating capacity is seven but there are 8 airbags for safety in it. For comfort other than all standard fittings, the AC comes with a dual zone climate control option, central locking is remote enabled and the music system is integrated within the dash. Now we have to wait and watch what Nissan comes up with when it launches Infinity.