Nissan Livina for the Chinese

Looks like the launch of the new Nissan 350Z is not distracting Nissan from their other tasks, as they plan to release a new model in their Chinese line-up, one that being developed in collaboration with Dongfeng Motors. The first model in this line-up was the Nissan Livina Geniss, a compact seven-seat minivan, introduced in the summer of 2006.

Now, the time has come for a new model to be unveiled, model simply called Nissan Livina. The event will take place in the Auto Shanghai show, held between April 22 to the 28th 2007. Nissan’s executive vice president Carlos Tavares comments: “In July 2006, Nissan announced plans to introduce a series of new cars for our key global markets, with a sales forecast of 200,000 units per year. This new family of global cars represents a substantial investment for Nissan. We expect the Livina, our second new model in this family, to make a significant contribution to our business globally as it is expected to become a high-volume model.”

The sale of this model is expected to start first in China in April of this year, and seeing how things go there, Nissan will consider releasing the Livina to other markets. The Chinese version of the Livina will be equipped with a 1.6 liter petrol-powered engine, coupled to a four-speed automatic or five speed manual transmission.

Manufacturing will take place at the Donfeng Motor Company's production facility in Guangzhou, although the Livina was designed and engineered at the Nissan Technical Center in Japan, starting from a Renault-Nissan platform.