After a long time, Renault-Nissan has shared their plans for the future of their products in India. They have already started work on bringing up to three new models to our market. As we’ve said before, this new product plan for India would be supported by an investment of about Rs 4,000 crore
The third-generation SUV, which hasn’t been shown yet, will be the all-new Duster for India. From 2013 to 2020, the first-gen Duster was sold in India. The second-gen SUV, which is currently on sale overseas, did not come to India.
The new Duster, which will be here by 2025, will be built on a CMF-B modular platform with a lot of local customization. On this platform, Renault and Nissan plan to build a number of new cars in the future. Aside from the Duster, the first car that isn’t based on this platform will be a brand-new SUV that Nissan will sell. This new SUV could take a lot of ideas from the next-generation Duster and is likely to be similar to the Duster-Terrano pair that was sold in India before.
The new Duster will be based on the Dacia Bigster concept car, which has already been shown. The SUV will have both five-seat and seven-seat versions, and it will compete with the Hyundai Creta, Kia Seltos, Volkswagen Taigun, Maruti Grand Vitara, Toyota Hyryder, Hyundai Alcazar, and even the MG Hector Plus.
The CMF-B platform will be retooled in a smart way for India and other low-cost markets. Non-essential parts will be taken out, but the platform will still be ready for the future. This means it will meet current and future safety standards and work with electric powertrains like hybrids and EVs. This is something that the old M0 platform, which cars like the Duster, Terrano, Captur, Lodgy, and Kicks were built on, can’t do.
Nissan will sell a brand-new MPV in India. It will be based on the CMF-A+ platform of the Renault Triber. This MPV will bring more people into Nissan stores that only sell the Magnite SUV right now.
Both brands are also thinking about making a brand-new entry-level electric vehicle (EV) based on the CMF-AEV platform for the Latin American market. Renault already sells an electric car based on the Kwid called the Kwid E-Tech in places like Brazil.
India is expected to be an important market for both domestic sales and exports for the Renault Nissan alliance. After the invasion of Ukraine, Renault left Russia, which we wrote about in the August 2022 issue of Autocar India. As a result, investments that had been planned for Russia are being moved to India. Also, Renault left China a few years ago, which made India an even bigger priority.
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