After reading the heading of this article, we know you will be a little confused. After reports of Renault Nissan confirming that there will be no more badge re-engineered products after Terrano, Times of India reports that these companies will, in fact, continue to offer similar products by copy pasting their brand logos on essentially the same machines.
After Terrano (launch this month), we could soon be getting our hands on another Badge-Engineered product from the stables of Nissan-Renault. The new vehicle will emerge from under the umbrella of Renault, and it will be a badge-engineered version of the Nissan Evalia.
Frankly, we aren’t sure about the kind of reception it will receive from the market since the Nissan Evalia tasted absolute bitter response from India. Nonetheless, Renault India is upbeat about its chances and plans to increase its product portfolio in the coming months.
The additions will include a small car and the above-mentioned Evalia-based MUV. The small car will be built upon the Common Module Family-Affordable Platform (CMF-A). This small car could take about 20-24 months to hit the streets. However, the MUV will obviously need a lot lesser time since it will just be a mere “Take Nissan’s badge Out, Put Renault’s badge in” kind of a job looking at their earlier products. After these two are launched, Renault will have a total of seven models in its kitty.
Renault India has set its sights high. It’s Executive Director (marketing) Sumit Sawhney stated that the company will increase the portfolio to about seven to eight products in the next two-three years. He also remarked that they are the fastest growing auto-entity in India, with about 35,000 unit sales in their second year of operations. He feels the company can achieve its target of doubling the year-on-year sales, even though the conditions are turbulent and hopes wary.
Their already tiny numbers have been hit due to inflation, rising interest rates and increase in fuel prices. The number of units sold in August fell to 3733 units this year from 3916 units in the previous year.
Nevertheless, Duster continues to muscle on. 6056 Dusters were dispatched in July-August 2013, up from 4378 Dusters in July-August 2012. It is also remarkable that Renault’s sales have grown four-fold for the year-on-year eight month sales from January to August. 10,139 cars were sold during Jan-Aug 2012, and that number surged to 45,986 cars during Jan-Aug 2013. Impressive! However, there is too much reliance on Duster and their other cars are not doing any significant numbers.
To extract any kind of traction from the Evalia badged MUV, Renault needs to look into the shortcomings of the Nissan Evalia. The boxy-looking vehicle never really had any connection with music, even though the company promoted it so. An overhaul of the exteriors as well as interiors will definitely help Renault avoid the embarrassing situation of inventory clearances at discounted prices!
Also Read: Renault-Nissan Plan Micra Based Compact Sedan to Take on Amaze & Dzire
