We sat down with Andy Palmer, Chief Planning Officer of Nissan and Chairman of the Infiniti Division, in Mumbai recently. Here are some excerpts from a very interesting roundtable discussion:
Japanese luxury vehicles seem to be lagging behind the Germans. How do you respond to that, and when can we see your luxury brand, Infiniti, in India?
We’re not losing ground – we’re actually growing. Historically, we were at 120-130,000 units a year. Last year, we were at 200,000. But it’s a lot of catch up towards 1 million. There are essentially three members of a very premium club – Mercedes, BMW and Audi. You’ve got three very rational brands. They’re also very good brands, so we have to ask ourselves – is there room for a fourth rational brand? My hypothesis is not. Jaguar, for instance, is a very rational brand, but they’re in the same position as us. Similarly, Lexus, Acura, and Cadillac, we all aspire for that fourth spot. Basic performance like ride, handling, acceleration, and torque are hygiene factors. But what we try to create with Infinity is design that is much more provocative – sexy if you want to use that word. Basically, something that comes with curves, that is more animal-like and more polarizing. We don’t expect everyone to like Infiniti design. We’re trying to create something for a younger generation, who are not so influenced by 125 years of history – particularly in some of the emerging markets, of which China is the most obvious one. In China, they cross-shop, whereas if you go to Germany nobody cross-shops – that’s something you have to spend years cultivating. Every year, we double sales in China by bringing in something different. In the US, we’re seeing good growth with the Q50 and QX60. Next year, we’ll introduce the compact Q30 – and that’s going to be the turning point! And that’s the moment when we have to reconsider India – because it’s a smaller car, not too audacious in terms of selling price, but beautiful. Moreover, we know that, to be in India, you have to put an industrial footprint in place. On a related note, we’ve just announced that we’re going to build Infiniti in Mexico with Daimler.
In the Nissan portfolio, you have some very exciting cars like the GT-R and Juke Nismo – which would be incredible halo cars. Any chance of seeing models like these in India to liven up the brand?
The GT-R is an obvious car to bring in as a brand halo. I don’t think we’ll sell enormous numbers – maybe to a few cricketers I hope – but I think it’s good to have a halo car in the country to show what the company is capable of doing. And I’m certainly an advocate of that, and I’m certainly an advocate of joining the dots with the GT Academy. I’m really pleased with the way that the GT Academy has taken off in this country. In the next few weeks, we’ll take the finalists to the grand final in the UK. If, for instance, I look at somebody like Jann Mardenborough – who’s gone from a gamer to taking part in GP3 – he was the fastest man up the Goodwood hill recently. He is genuinely amazing. What I’d love to see is for us to find an Indian who can compliment some of your more established drivers. Then link that to the brand – link that to the GT-R. Whilst the majority of us are not capable of buying a GT-R, at least you know that when you’re buying a Micra – or let’s say a Micra Nismo – in some way you’re buying into that dream.
SUV’s have been a very big part of your growth globally. In India that’s a growing segment of course. At present, you have just one model from the Renault-Nissan Alliance. What does the future hold for Nissan SUV’s in India?
Generally, I don’t really care for cross-badging, or even fairly major skin changes. It’s an expedient way of getting to market quickly – especially when that market is new and you’re uncertain about it. When you talk about a second generations of vehicles, I think it’s much more likely that you get to a completely different vehicle. Now, platforms can be shared. We share platforms everywhere – with Renault, and sometimes with Daimler. This is normal. We can tune them, but, essentially, we get the economies of scale. But I think it’s fair to say that Nissan, as an SUV company, will want to have its own SUV in India.
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