Nissan; With Or Without Chrysler, Nissan Titan Production Will Continue

Quote :

Automotive news reports that Brian Carolin, Nissan North America's senior vice president for sales and marketing, is confident that the next-generation Nissan Titan light-duty pickup will be built by Chrysler off the 2009 Dodge Ram half-ton platform despite Chrysler entering a Chapter 11 bankruptcy and partnering with Fiat, a rival to Nissan's European ally, Renault.

Regardless of whether or not Chrysler and Nissan restart shelved plans to swap a small car and a full-size truck with each other, Nissan says it will continue to produce and sell the Titan half-ton pickup.

Last year, the two announced that the next-generation Titan would be built at Chrysler's Saltillo, Mexico, assembly plant starting in early 2011, and would be based on the Dodge Ram 1500 light-duty pickup. Current Titan production at Nissan's Canton, Miss., plant was scheduled to end in late 2010, to make room for a new product line of light-commercial vehicles.

The postponed project raised questions about Nissan’s short and long-term plans for the Titan if it wasn’t built on the Ram platform.

“Our goal is to stay in the full-size market, even if Chrysler doesn’t build the Titan for us,” said Larry Dominique, Nissan North America’s vice president of product and advanced planning, on Wednesday at the New York Auto Show. Light-duty “trucks sell about 1.1 million [units] annually right now. That’s important to us. We could potentially extend Titan production [beyond 2010] to stay in the market.”

Dominique also said that while design work on the next-generation Titan was nearly complete, Nissan could design and build a new Titan on its own, if necessary.

Big trucks, like the Titan, have been hit hard by the poor U.S. economy. Total light- and heavy-duty sales in 2008 were 1.61 million units, down 27.1 percent from 2007's 2.21 million full-size trucks sold and the 2004 peak of 2.56 million.

Nissan Titan sales have faced the stiffest headwinds. The Titan — the oldest half-ton pickup on the market in its current design — saw sales fall by almost 50 percent last year. 2009 year-to-date sales have buffeted the Titan even harder, with sales off almost 60 percent, at 4,582 units sold.

In response to slowing sales, Nissan has dramatically curtailed Titan production. According to manufacturing data from Automotive News, Nissan produced 11,790 Titans during the first quarter of 2008 but only 374 have been made during the same period this year — a drop of 96.8 percent.

“We’ve realigned production for all of our vehicles based on sales performance,” said Dominique. “By reducing [Titan] production we’re making sure we’re doing what’s right for Nissan. Our dealers have worked down inventory to low levels. We’re prepared now to turn on manufacturing volume quite rapidly if the demand is there.”

In contrast, the all-new Dodge Ram 1500 has done well compared to the Titan. Though Ram sales are off 32 percent year-to-date, its sales increased 34 percent in March compared to February.

But Chrysler has financial and viability concerns that continue to keep the next-generation Titan project with Nissan on the backburner.

“We’re still in discussions with Nissan but right now we’re focusing all of our energy in our [strategic partnership] discussions with Fiat and the government,” said Jim Press, Chrysler’s vice chairman and president, on Wednesday at the New York Auto Show.

Robert, when did this get printed? I think I saw something on Financial News about the Titan plant being closed.

I saw that One of their major plants was closing, but if I remember correctly.... The Titan is produced off two different lines. But I could be wrong.

I could be mistaken as well. I think the story I saw said a plant in Mississippi was closing.

Here is what I found.....

Quote :

Before Chrysler was ever involved in alliance dealings with Fiat, the Auburn Hills-based carmaker was already tied with Nissan over several platform swapping and production sharing deals. In February of this year, however, plans for Nissan to build a Chrysler compact car based on its Versa in exchange for Chrysler building a redesigned Titan pickup truck alongside the Dodge Ram were halted.

With no word on the progress of the deal for some time now, Nissan's U.S. sales chief has finally spoken out about the state of negotiations since Chrysler formed its new alliance with Fiat. Speaking with Automotive News, Brian Carolin explained that the deal for Chrysler to build the Nissan Titan pickup vehicle was still progressing and that the carmaker had already "signed off on the final styling of the vehicle".

It remains uncertain whether or not Nissan will still be building a small car based on its Versa model for Chrysler, but with Chrysler's new tie-up with Fiat this may no longer be necessary. Despite this, Carolin is confident that the deal will go through to build the Titan since the project will be "profitable for both parties" involved.

Currently, the Nissan Titan is performing poorly in the pickup market, especially compared to major competitors such as Chrysler, GM and Toyota. Nevertheless, contracting Chrysler to build the pickup should save the Japanese company money in the long-term and perhaps allow it to pick up sales in 2011 when the new model is expected to hit dealerships. The benefit to Chrysler is the economies of scale brought by the increased production volumes.

Now I did find another site that said even though the plant in Mississippi has planns of being closed, The Japanese automaker still plans to keep the three lines of vehicles made their, the Quest, Infiniti Q35 and the Titan in production out of their Northern California facility.

I tried to find a more detailed article on this to link too, however, I could not. and in my process lost the original page...LOL...


Things are changing fast for all the major automakers, and will continue to do so. The governments plan with the C.A.R.S. program is helping but the damage to the industry has been done.

All we can do is value sites like these and maintain what we have. We will lose the smaller companies like we lost Daewoo and whatnot, but I am comfident we will not lose the major ones like the Nissan corp., Toyota, GM, Honda or Ford. right now Chrysler is still a question mark, but I am comfident that we will see them for a long time to come too.

anyways, that is how I see it.

As far as I know, Nissan had two plants (one in MS, one in TN) to build there full size vehicles. I had also heard they would extend hours at the one in TN to make up the difference in production. What actually happens, only time will tell.

Got it. Cool. I have some buddies that bought those Titans. They love the trucks but always complain about harsh ride and mileage.

A few co workers of mine have them. I am not impressed. Poor fuel economy, huge blind spots, weird layout, etc... Plus, no 1 on the vin. lol.

True. Foreign OEMs made here get 4 or 5 IIRC. We will have a huge political debate if we get very far into this one.

BombDocDiesel wrote:

True. Foreign OEMs made here get 4 or 5 IIRC. We will have a huge political debate if we get very far into this one.

Yeah, they get 4 & 5 depending on how much of it was made where. Polititcal debate? Whats that?

The debate how difficult it is to buy American or how NAFTA screwed the industry. How about the Camaro being foreign-made.

I do my best to buy American, but if I cant Canadian isnt that bad...

I will take Oshawa, Ontario over Tokyo, Japan ANY day.

It just iritates me that a contract was made so that a new Camaro "HAD" to be made there. Such crap. The best affordable American muscle is made in Canada.

If it makes you feel any better I beleive the engine and transmission are made in New York, but.... when its all said and done, the car still has a 2.

I know. That's what keeps me from owning one. Sad, truly sad.