Nissan Titan to be axed

The Nissan Titan will be killed off within about two years, according to Automotive News sources, ending any chance of the Japanese brand’s biggest ute being sold in Australia as a rival for full-size US pick-ups like the RAM 1500, Chevrolet Silverado and upcoming Ford F-150.

Currently built only in left-hand drive form in and for the North American market – like all of its direct rivals – the Nissan Titan has been on Nissan Australia’s wish-list since 2017, a year after the second-generation version was released in the US.

Right-hand drive factory production or local RHD conversion, as per the RAM and Silverado ‘remanufacturing’ work officially done Down Under by the Walkinshaw Group, have both been on Nissan’s agenda, but the global pandemic stalled the project in 2020 and it has not been revisited.

According to an unnamed AN source, Nissan is deciding whether to pull the plug on the Titan for the 2024 or 2025 model year, following years of playing fourth fiddle – in terms of sales – to the F-Series, RAM and Silverado from Detroit’s Big Three truck-makers.

“There's no plan engineering's working on for replacing it, updating it,” said the Automotive News mole. “It's dead.”

Nissan North America spokesman Brian Brockman told AN the Titan “remains in Nissan's truck lineup for the 2022 model year and beyond” and “is an important part of Nissan's showroom”.

However, AN reports that two leading industry forecasters, LMC Automotive and AutoForecast Solutions, also don’t expect Nissan to introduce a redesigned Titan once production of the current generation ends by late 2024.

Sharing its ladder frame with the Nissan Patrol, the first Nissan Titan was launched at the Detroit motor show in 2003 and was followed in 2016 by the second generation, which brought a more powerful Cummins diesel V8, luxury XD version and updated design in 2019 as part of a $US230 million product investment approved by Nissan's then-CEO Carlos Ghosn.

But after almost two decades on sale in the US, despite original launch prices that undercut key competitors by up to around $5000, the Titan failed to meet Nissan’s sales targets or make any significant impact on the Big Three’s market share – or even that of the Toyota Tundra – in part due to a lack of powertrain, driveline and bodystyle options.

The Toyota Tundra entered a new generation in 2021 and the world’s biggest car-maker continues to study the business case for US factory right-hand drive production for export markets including Australia.

Of the two million-plus new pick-ups sold in North America last year, General Motors sold about 780,000 (split between about 530K Chevrolet Silverados and 250K GMC Sierras), Ford sold more than 725,000, RAM sold about 570,000, Toyota sold just over 80,000 and Nissan sold around 27,000.

Nissan had hoped to eventually sell 100,000 Titans annually in the US but sales peaked at 86,945 in 2005. In the first quarter of this year, Titan sales amounted to 6415 and just 1.4 per cent of the segment.

One dealer told Automotive News the Nissan Titan was a victim of the fierce brand loyalty of US pick-up buyers, many of whom are rusted-on to established American brands like Ford, Chevy and RAM.

“Conquesting a brand-loyal Ford customer to come to a Nissan Titan has proven to be extremely difficult,” said the dealer.

“Because of their volume, the Detroit three have the budget to freshen and bring out new pick-up product and technologies a lot faster than Nissan. Nissan cannot be everything to everybody.”

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