Nissan has announced that they’re designing an all-new full-sized pickup truck for the North American market. Currently, Nissan’s only offering in this most lucrative of American markets is the Titan, which has shown less than stellar sales with little market penetration. With every major truck maker launching or planning to launch new entries into this 1.6 million unit U.S. market, Nissan is stepping up to the plate to join them.
Unlike the current strategy for the Titan, which launched in 2003 and has largely seen sales to younger audiences who use the truck mainly for recreation and everyday driving, Nissan plans to enter this new truck into the fleet and trades professional arenas alongside mainstay offerings from Ford, General Motors, Ram Truck, and Toyota.
“As a full-line manufacturer, Nissan aims to be a player in every part of the truck business,” said Pierre Loing, vice president, Product and Advanced Planning and Strategy, Nissan Americas in a release. “Our truck teams in Michigan, Arizona, Tennessee and Mississippi are hard at work on a next generation full-size truck line that will expand Titan’s appeal to a broader spectrum of truck buyers, including the all-important skilled trades-buyers. Our new truck will be filled with Nissan innovation and expertise without compromise.”
This does not mean that Nissan will be abandoning the Titan or getting out of the small truck market as others have done. Instead, the ever-popular Frontier will remain in the lineup and the Titan will likely continue sales in its specific consumer appeal.
The introduction of Nissan’s new NV200 commercial van may be a sign of where they’ll head with the new pickup offering. While the NV200 is a small commercial vehicle, it has most of the task-specific tailoring that work trucks of all sizes require and its generally enthusiastic acceptance so far shows that Nissan’s engineers know how to appeal to the commercial market.
The company has not issued a timeline for the release of this promised new truck for competitive reasons, but it will almost assuredly debut at a traditional American auto show, most likely Los Angeles at the end of the year as it didn’t appear in the Chicago show’s press days this week.
