Nissan Motor Co on Thursday became the first domestic automaker to launch a diesel car in Japan in six years, blazing the trail for rivals looking to revive the fuel-saving engine to cut greenhouse gas emissions.
The X-Trail 20GT sport utility vehicle, powered by an engine lead-developed by partner Renault SA is also the world's first "clean" diesel car to meet Japan's new emissions standards to kick in from October 2009, said to be the strictest in the world. Diesel cars make up more than half of the European market, but a powerful smear campaign by Tokyo's popular governor in the late 1990s deriding them as smelly, noisy and polluting has all but erased the fuel-efficient cars from Japanese roads.
Nissan was the standout among major automakers in US auto sales data released on Wednesday, surprising investors with a 13.6 percent increase in August sales. The diesel X-Trail, only available in manual transmission, costs just under 3 million yen ($27,710), carrying a price premium of about 400,000 yen ($3,695) over a comparable gasoline version. Nissan said it hoped to sell about 100 units a month.
Nissan said the 2.0-litre X-Trail 20GT, which goes on sale on September 18, gets 30 percent more mileage than a 2.5-litre gasoline engine version with the same power output. The price difference with the gasoline version can be offset by driving an average 10,000 km (6,200 miles) a year for three years, it said.