Last week, Nissan Motors officially launched the Datsun brand for the Indian market. With low cost, entry level cars coming from the Datsun portfolio, Nissan will not offer cars under the smaller than the Micra. However, that does not stop the Japanese giant to expand under the current lineup of cars. According to AutoCarIndia, an automatic version of the Nissan Sunny is making its way to India in early 2013.
Powering the Nissan Sunny automatic will be the 1.4-litre inline-four petrol motor that pumps out 97 bhp and 134 Nm torque. Mated to the motor is a Continuous Variable Transmission (CVT) to cut down cost. It will battle against the Maruri Suzuki Dzire AT that features a four-speed automatic gearbox. The extra edge that Dzire has over the Sunny is that the former is the cheapest automatic transmission saloon in the Indian market.
Though the Nissan Sunny automatic comes with CVT, it will still cost over Rs 80,000 more than the manual variant. Moreover, CVT cars are arguably less fuel-efficient than cars with automatic gearbox. We will keep you updated about the launch of Japanese saloon.