Nissan has launched the new edition of Evalia MPV for this festive season in India. The October launch works well for automakers as Diwali is the occasion when people make big ticket purchases, like cars.
Nissan India had introduced Evalia MPV in 2012, riding high on expectations, which were belied soon enough. Nissan was looking forward to beat Toyota Innova at its own game and wanted to sell around 2,000 units MPV every month, but, managed to sell just around 18 units in April. Having been bitten once, the company is not shying away from seeking to offer the same product, albeit in a refreshed format, figuring perhaps, that in the fun, frolic and frenzy of Diwali, the Evalia MPV will shine bright.
The top end version of Nissan Evalia MPV, which has just been introduced, comes across as an overhauled version, but, having said that, the designers have taken back the exteriors to the drawing board and the result comes across as a striking new version. The resultant variant has been christened XV-S and comes with a price tag higher than its forerunner. The price of Rs10.55 lakh and is Rs 30,000 more than the XV version of this vehicle.
Now, what do you get when you pay those extra bucks?
XV comes with extremely light steering wheel as well as short turning radius despite the size, which makes it easy to maneuver in the city. You also get 15? rims along with wash-wipe set rear, closed glove box along with captain seats and windows that open in the second row along with AC which is now incorporated at the roof end. The swept back headlights add a very Japanese flavour to it but the boxy exteriors offer a very school van look to the MPV. Nissan has come up with these changes after receiving customers’ feedback. However, most of the changes incorporated in the MPV have come across as cosmetic changes so as to eliminate the undeniably taxi-like look of the vehicle.
Power will be derived from the 1.5L K9K engine which produces output of 88bhp along with 200Nm. The engine comes mated to a 5 speed manual transmission gearbox which will also be seen doing duty in the XV-S. The engine doing duty in Evalia is also seen on its siblings like Micra and Terrano along with Renault?s Duster and Scala plus Mahindra Verito in both the sedan and hatchback versions. The tried and tested engine does not seem to run so well on highways and speed needs to be tackled well.
Nissan Evalia, dubbed as NV200 earlier, comes as both passenger and cargo vehicle in the international market. The Japanese automaker introduced Evalia as a passenger vehicle in the Indian market so that the difference could be maintained with Ashok Leyland’s Stile. XV-S and its distant cousin, Stile, which was recently introduced in the Indian market, share some features. Both utility vehicles are assembled at Renault-Nissan?s facility at Oragadam and have received facelifts within the span of few weeks. Stile’s target audience was the taxi segment where it was introduced to beat Innova and Evalia was flaunted as a more premium model to lure regular consumers.
The Evalia boasts best-in-class luggage capacity and is the only vehicle with sliding doors in the Japanese auto major’s portfolio.
But will the image makeover script a Diwali dhamaka for the Japanese auto-major? Check out our poll and vote.
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