Nissan faces the music: abandons heavy duty truck program
With gas prices on the rise again, and the fact that Nissan Titan sales have never really taken off, Nissan has apparently abandoned plans to create an even larger heavy-duty truck. The Titan platform also currently underpins the big Armada and Infiniti QX56 SUVs and the next generation of those trucks will likely migrate to a substantially lighter uni-body architecture. That would make them more crossover-like and more fuel efficient.
Since a heavy duty variant would have required a unique, substantially beefed up frame, in order to handle the increased payloads and towing capacity, the low sales projections just didn't justify the development. The lack of a suitable diesel to put in the the HD Titan surely didn't help either. The truck was due in 2009-10 as was a Toyota heavy duty truck that has also been shelved for now.
[Source: AutoWeek]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Schmeltz 8:58AM (3/15/2007)
I am not clear on some things after reading this announcement. Is Nissan planning to "water down", for lack of a better word, there Titan trucks? I'm thinking of a Honda Ridgeline when it said,"the next generation of those trucks will likely migrate to a substantially lighter uni-body architecture. That would make them more crossover-like and more fuel efficient." Is that where Nissan is planning to go eventually with their Titan? Also, I didn't know Toyota abandoned the idea of heavy duty versions of the Tundras. Are Nissan and Toyota finding this market tougher to crack then first thought?
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jim 9:21AM (3/15/2007)
This appears to be a case of a writer babbling about something that he has no information on.
Nissan simply announced that they were dropping the HD program. Since the Titan and Armada are built on a separate platform there is no reason to speculate on significant changes in that design, pending additional information from Nissan.
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Schmeltz 11:16AM (3/15/2007)
I went over to Autoweek, the sighted source of this article, and I pretty much arrived at the same conclusions as Sam. Nissan is dropping plans for 3/4 and 1 ton pick-ups, reducing some body on frame SUV's, and moving to crossover platforms for these vehicles. They said it was a business move since they could potentially lose a lot of money if they couldn't move a lot of these bigger vehicles. As for Toyota, its suppliers are saying the heavy duty trcuk program has been "suspended indefinitely". Now granted, that didn't come from Toyota itself, but if the suppliers are saying it, you would think that is reasonable to believe.
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lawtrainee 12:57AM (3/16/2007)
just put a light diesel engine in and get that greater mileage every consumer thinks about. I've been keeping my eye on these trucks and I'm waiting for a light diesel from any of them, Ford, GM, Chyrsler, Toyota, etc.
What keeps me thinking of a crossover more and more over these trucks is that the acceleration of a truck is very poor. Abit the new Trunda can dash to 60 in 6 seconds, it would be great to have a light diesel with a load of torque do that and get those high freeway mileages too.
Granted diesels have a huge hurdle to jump through but Mercedes has diesels and with Ammonia injection like what big rigs have it would be cheaper to do that and maybe license whatever technology Honda is going to bring to market for their new diesel passenger cars to keep that emissions low.
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