Nissan Altima no Commodore rival

Nissan says its new Altima will compete directly with the Toyota Camry and Honda Accord, despite the fact it’s closer in size to large sedans like the Holden Commodore and Ford Falcon, against which it races in the V8Supercar championship.

The new Thai-built Altima is 4885mm long -- 70mm longer than the locally-built Camry and just 62mm shorter than the 4947mm Commodore -- and replaces Nissan’s large Maxima sedan.

But that doesn't make it a large car, insists Nissan Australia Managing Director and CEO, Peter Jones, who says the car's $29,990 starting price and front-wheel drive layout make it a mid-size car.

"We see this car in the mid-sized segment, squarely against Camry and Accord as a medium passenger car. The way it's marketed is for those buyers," he said.

Nissan wouldn't talk about sales forecasts but Jones doesn’t expect it to outsell the Australian-made Camry.

“We don't aspire to be number one in the segment, because it is a very, very competitive segment,” he said.

“At the end of the day this car is hugely successful in the US and from time to time it's the number one seller (there). We've got great competition with Camry, which is obviously way ahead in that segment, but I think we'll see where the car settles.”

Jones noted that “we don’t have massive expectations in that volume space”, but said Nissan has been actively talking with fleet companies and other non-private customers including salary-sacrifice buyers, who are expected to account for around 60 per cent of sales.

The Altima replaces Nissan's current large car flag-bearer, the Maxima, but has been repositioned to appeal to fleet buyers with Camry-beating fuel economy of 7.5L/100km from its entry-level 2.5-litre four-cylinder 127kW engine.

“Once this car launches, Maxima stops,” stated Jones.

With the Maxima being discontinued and large car sales slumping, Nissan says it is not avoiding labelling the Altima a large car to escape negativity associated with that segment.

“It's a declining segment but no I don’t think so,” said Jones.

Although the Altima has been doing battle with the Falcon and Commodore on the racetrack, it doesn't mean it has to do the same in showrooms, he said.

“Obviously we've been compared a lot against Commodore and Falcon on the track, but the only place we're going to compete against these large cars is on the racetrack,” he said.

Nissan says its multi-million-dollar outlay to field four V8Supercars has delivered increased customer awareness for the new vehicle in Australia -- something that's often hard to come by when launching an all-new car with a new nameplate, as Nissan found out with the unloved Tiida.

And don't expect Nissan to leverage its V8 racing credentials to launch a tyre-shredding eight-cylinder Altima.

“Do we have a V8 Altima? No is the answer, I'll be very clear,” stated Jones. “Are we going to bring one out? No.”

“We have four V8s on the track and that's the only time you're going see that in the Altima. And it's the only time we're going to put Altima up against Commodore and Falcon.”

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