Nissan vows to bounce back with Pulsar hatch

Nissan says it will bounce back from a sudden sales slide and the new Pulsar hatch that goes on sale today with a 20-year-old price -- $18,990 -- is the start of its next growth spurt.

Nissan knocked off the iconic Holden brand in February and March for the first time in Australian automotive history but sales fell off a cliff in April and May.

The sales slowdown sparked speculation Nissan had choked its dealer network with too many cars in the rush to the end of the Japanese financial year (March 31), and that they now had a backlog of vehicles and a shortage of customers.

“May was a tough month … but one month doesn’t make a trend,” says the boss of Nissan Australia Bill Peffer. “The market was fairly ballistic. It was the beginning of [the advertising period] for the end of the financial year for many of our competitors. We were down on our internal sales targets but I’m not worried. We have a lot of new models coming.”

The arrival of the hatch will open Nissan to the majority of the small-car market, he said. “The small car segment is 25 per cent of the new-car market. And in some parts of Australia hatches are 80 per cent of the small-car segment. So we’re very excited with how the Pulsar is going to perform. The hatch will allow us to get to a new level.”

However Peffer stopped short of saying the Pulsar would overtake the small-car mainstays, the Toyota Corolla and Mazda3 -- a forecast made when he took the top job at Nissan Australia a year ago. “The leaders in the [small-car] class do 2000 to 2500 a month. That’s difficult [to match] but let’s see how we go.”

Nissan’s motivation to grow sales in Australia will likely translate to sharp deals on its cars -- and those of its competitors. The Pulsar hatch which went on sale today at $18,990 (plus on-road costs) is $1000 cheaper than the sedan. Peffer said the recent currency shift and drop in the value of the Australian dollar was unlikely to prompt a price rise in the near term.

Meanwhile the Pulsar SSS -- with a turbocharged 1.6-litre engine -- starts at $29,240, but the turbo engine can be had in a cut-price version called the ST-S which starts at $24,990.

By the end of this year Nissan will introduce the oddball Juke hatchback SUV, the new Pathfinder seven-seat SUV (although not available with a diesel engine) and the Altima V6 sedan (the replacement to the Maxima and the car Nissan is campaigning in the V8 Supercar series).

Nissan is expected to have even stronger sales next year. In 2014 it will introduce three models in the two of the biggest vehicle segments: the new generation Nissan Dualis and X-Trail compact SUVs are due in local showrooms as is the long-awaited new generation Nissan Navara utility range.

This reporter is on Twitter: @JoshuaDowling