It’s powerful to interrupt into a longtime market the place model loyalty reigns supreme and previous habits die laborious. Nowhere is that extra evident than with full-sized pickup vans in America, a phase during which the Detroit Three have a stranglehold on gross sales. Only two different manufacturers of late have dared attempt to muscle their means into the world; within the not-too-distant future, there could also be solely half that quantity.
According to a report from Automotive News, Nissan is able to let its Titan pickup truck wither till the tip of its present lifecycle. “There’s no plan engineering’s working on for replacing it, updating it,” a supply for the business insiders have apparently instructed AN. The solely resolution left to make, allegedly, is whether or not the truck makes it to the 2024 or 2025 mannequin yr.
Put succinctly by the supply: “It’s dead.”
This is gloomy information, and never simply because it means one much less competitor within the market. Nissan and their Titan all the time represented a unusual, off-beat selection for the phase – significantly after they provided the rig in ‘regular’ and ‘almost-but-not-quite’ three-quarter ton XD variants. Production of the second-gen Titan kicked off in November 2015, changing a truck which had been in the marketplace for nicely over a decade and had really began improvement waaay again after we had been all nonetheless apprehensive in regards to the Y2K bug. Your creator will posit it was a decently engaging truck, although XD fashions had a too-long schnoz. It didn’t assist that Ram, Ford, and GM all the time appeared to supply extra toys like massaging seats and innovation such because the Blue Oval’s 7.2 kW in-bed generator on PowerBoost-equipped vans.
Bent on taking the Detroit Three to activity, Nissan provided the Titan in a myriad of physique configurations – common cab, prolonged cab, crew cab – and field lengths, to not point out a Cummins diesel choice within the XD. These had been certainly not low cost choices. A refresh in 2020 introduced a tweaked nostril and improved inside together with a greater transmission and up-to-date driving tech. Sales didn’t get higher.
North of the border, Canadian customers noticed the Titan vanish from Nissan showrooms after the 2021 mannequin yr. This was a lot to the chagrin of some sellers who invested closely in store instruments and tools for these rigs, to not point out the coaching and advertising and marketing presence they’d constructed through the years because the second-gen Titan appeared. One seller on this creator’s space now has a surplus constructing on his land, empty save for the now ineffective ‘Nissan Commercial’ indicators hanging on the place. It ought to be famous the Titan comprised a big chunk of his retailer’s quantity.
If the speaking heads are right, this transfer could allow Nissan to unlock manufacturing amenities and R&D for different fashions. There is an argument to be made the corporate could also be higher served plowing assets into different tasks, doing one of the best job they will with these machines as a substitute of spreading itself too skinny by trying to play in markets the place it’s failing to get a lot traction. In calendar yr 2021 – a wierd annum for all producers, to make certain – Nissan managed to promote 27,406 Titan vans. Ford, for its half, shifted a complete of 726,004 F-Series pickups.
We’ll depart the final phrase with an nameless seller who offered the next quote to AN: “I would hope Nissan would spend extra money on R&D on the Frontier,” he mentioned. “If we’re walking away from the full-size segment, then we must be extremely good at the midsize truck.”
[Images: Nissan]
Become a TTAC insider. Get the most recent information, options, TTAC takes, and every thing else that will get to the reality about automobiles first by subscribing to our e-newsletter.
Related
Source: www.thetruthaboutcars.com
