Nissan vans on hold

NISSAN appears in no hurry to pursue its on-again off-again van strategy for Australia, putting it on hold indefinitely.

Nissan Australia CEO Bill Peffer told GoAuto the company has a much more important job fixing its low passenger car market share.

While he would not set a date as to when his company will look at the situation again, he advised us not to expect any action on the Nissan van front for up to two years.

“We are concentrating on the new sedans and SUVs that are coming,” he said. “We can look at vans later.

“Passenger cars is where we need to grow to move with the market.” Just last November, his predecessor Dan Thompson revealed that a van business case was underway with a view to taking on the dominant Hyundai iLoad and Toyota Hi-Ace.

Mr Thompson told us then that the new NV350 unveiled at the Tokyo motor show in early December – which has since gone on sale in Japan – was a strong candidate to enter the medium van segment here by mid-2013.