Nissan delays Euro Pulsar decision

The chances of Nissan’s ‘Euro’ Pulsar being sold in Australia appear to be diminishing as the decision on its local future looks likely to blow out to 2016 and a “harsh” approach to the selection of models from the company’s burgeoning global model inventory is adopted.

The ‘Euro’ Pulsar – so named because it was designed and developed in Europe and is built only at Nissan’s plant in Barcelona, Spain – has been touted as a solution to Nissan Australia’s small car woes.

But Nissan Australia's new managing director and CEO Richard Emery, who has been in the job since April, told motoring.com.au that a decision on whether the car would come to Australia was unlikely to occur in 2015.

“Discussions are ongoing but I have to be convinced it’s a stepped improvement on the current car for us to make sure it delivers what we need to do in terms of changing Pulsar,” Emery said.

“We will take some interim steps on Pulsar next year anyway to get the line-up sorted out. But the next step of going to do the Euro version of the car is not decided yet and I am not sure it will be decided next year.”

Based on the Renault-Nissan Alliance’s new CMF2 architecture, the Euro Pulsar is being launched with 1.2-litre turbo-petrol and 1.5-litre turbo-diesel engine choices. A 1.6-litre turbo-petrol engine – as used by the Pulsar SSS hatch here – launches in 2015.

Meantime, Nissan Australia will add the Pulsar SSS sedan to its local line-up later than expected in March next year.

In addition, concept NISMO versions of both North America's Sentra – which is related to Australia's existing Pulsar sedan – and the new Euro Pulsar hatch have also been previewed.

Significantly, the Euro Pulsar has met with less than stellar reviews from the European motoring press since its launch. While evasive when asked if they impacted on the Euro Pulsar’s local chances, Emery stressed any decision would be the result of thorough analysis and not a “knee jerk”.

“We need to get our product plan robust and long-term,” he said. “There has been some elements of knee-jerk — just grab every product we possibly can. So we need to be a little more harsh in our decision making, more robust in our decision making process.

“So you could say ‘oh look at that Euro Pulsar, that looks better than the current car, or it has better spec, or a better engine, or whatever else, quickly let's do it’. But it’s about taking a measured approach and saying ‘well actually do all the elements in that car give us an improved market position?’

“If they don’t give us a markedly improved position then in the timeframes involved, is it the right thing to do? That’s where we are at.”

The Pulsar hatch and sedan sold in Australia are Thai-built Asian-specific models that replaced the unsuccessful Tiida (the hatch is actually still badged Tiida in other markets) with most models powered a by a 1.8-litre naturally-aspirated petrol engine.

The Aussie Pulsar has failed to live up to sales expectations in the biggest single local market segment. To the end of November, it has ranked seventh in sales in the segment this year, with 9660 registrations being total down 24.1 per cent year-on-year. Some of that can be attributed to a conscious decision by Nissan not to pursue volume at all costs as the year runs out.

Overall Nissan has sold 60,156 vehicles in Australia in 2014 — a 14.3 per cent decrease from 2013.

“We have taken a balanced view of moving some of the cars we do have from a financial perspective,” Emery said. “We are taking a fairly measured and responsible approach to getting our volume solution without being silly about it.

“Would I have liked to have sold more cars? Yeah, probably. Over the last couple of months there are probably 300 or 400 cars per month I probably would have liked to have done.”

Emery said launching the new higher-tech D23 Navara ute will be the priority for Nissan in the first half of 2015. He promised it would be “very good value”.

Meanwhile, the NISMO performance sub-brand continued to shape up well for the second half of 2015: “We are working really heavily on NISMO for next year,” he confirmed.