Nissan Duster is still on the way but it seems Japanese are betting heavily on it. As learnt, Nissan and Renault may put an end to the badge engineering in our nation and this piece of news is not churned out from any of the rumor mills, instead we heard Kenichero Yomura saying, “India is a very competitive market and we came in late. In order to be cost competitive we needed to be a big volume player from the beginning. We shared products with Renault and both companies sell products in domestic and export (market). By doing that we achieved big volumes in three years. But we will not see the cross-badged models. It was only for the beginning not anymore.”
It seems, both the auto brands supported each other during their rough times and now they have been strengthened enough to chalk out their own way on our local shores.
Naming few instances, Nissan Micra – Renault Pulse, Nissan Sunny – Renault Scala, and the upcoming Nissan Duster – Renault Duster, are the ones that raised eyebrows in our automotive horizon. Expected to release Nissan’s version of Duster by this October, precisely to be near the festive season of Diwali, it may happen to be the last roll out from house of Japanese with the kiss of ‘French’, lest the time will only tell what future have stored in for both the auto companies.