Nissan studying NV vans for Australia

Australia's hyper-competitive commercial van market could soon have a new player with Nissan flagging its interest in the segment.

The local arm of the Japanese company is searching far and wide for models to bolster its line-up and sales, and Nissan's van range is on the consideration list.

The Nissan-Renault-Mitsubishi alliance's global light commercial vehicle chief Ashwani Gupta is backing that local interest, declaring to media at last week's Navara Series 3 launch that vans can be on the boat any time Nissan Australia asks for them.

Gupta was speaking between product planning meetings with Nissan Australian MD Stephen Lester and his team.

"As I have said to Stephen, the day he decides the van is his," Gupta said.

"We don't have to do any development because they are available in Europe in right-hand drive because we are leaders in the United Kingdom."

Nissan sells the electric E-NV200 (pictured), NV200, NV300 and NV400 vans in the UK. The small 200 models are Nissan-developed, while the 300 is derived from the Renault Trafic and the 400 from the Renault Master.

Both the Trafic and Master are already sold in Australia by Renault and along with the small Kangoo account for more than 40 per cent of local sales volume for the brand.

Other NV derivatives include the mini 100, the 350 sold in Asia and the heavy-duty 1500-3500 sold in North America.

Lester was predictably far less exuberant than his boss in his public comments about the prospect of bring Nissan vans to Australia. Certainly, there is no prospect of anything happening before 2020 at the earliest.

"We will be further discussing this topic absolutely," said Lester. "Nothing as far as what we should be looking at for Australia is off the table.

"We need to look at the right business case decision on all these things to make sure the business case works and we shouldn't limit our thinking to one vehicle concept or another."

Despite his enthusiasm, Gupta did temper his comments by describing vans as a "marginal" or "complementary" business for Nissan in Australia, with the main emphasis on models such as the Navara.

"Our [Navara] focus will remain the focus for Nissan and if van is needed to support that business, then obviously, we will investigate that."

Gupta cautioned that much of the investment cost in vans would come for Nissan Australia beyond simply getting them into dealerships.

"The investment is not only in the product. When we talk about light commercial vehicles we talk about professional customers, so the investment has to be done at the customer touchpoint.

"That means the training to talk to an electrician who wants to put electrical equipment in his van -- you need a guy who can talk to him. This is a significant amount of investment.

"If his van needs a servicing then you need to give him alternate van because he cannot stop his business. This is all preparation at the customer touchpoint and this is significant investment."

During his Australian visit Gupta also talked up the prospect of a Navara-based rival for the Ford Ranger sports truck and the strong Aussie chances for the new Navara-based Terra off-road SUV.