Photo: Nissan
Introduced in 2014 and based on the Common Module Family vehicle architecture, the Nissan Pulsar doesn’t excel at anything. It’s an honest car for its segment, but without any sort of spicing to the overall package, sales of the compact hatchback took a turn for the worst.
From a high of 43,267 sales in 2015, the Pulsar dropped to 25,183 examples in 2017. So few vehicles sold within a year across Europe is no laughing matter for the beancounters, which is why the higher-ups decided to phase out the underperforming model.
That’s a bit of a shame for both the automotive world and the workers at Nissan Motor Iberica in Barcelona, Spain. The Pulsar is also manufactured at the Guangzhou plant in China. Until December 2015, the Tiida-badged version of the compact hatchback was produced in Izhevsk, Russia.
Except for the best-selling Qashqai crossover, the Leaf remains the only other compact vehicle in the Nissan lineup in Europe. The thing is, both the Qashqai and Leaf are more expensive than the Pulsar as far as pricing is concerned.
The successor of the Almera didn’t cut the mustard, but the most disappointing detail about this story is the projected sales figure. Before it arrived at dealerships across the European Union, Nissan announced that the Pulsar would sell 64,000 examples per year if everything goes according to plan. Except it didn’t.
In regard to absolutes, the Qashqai is the best-selling Nissan in the Old Continent, ranked 5th in 2017 thanks to 230,860 sales. Higher up the list, we have the Ford Fiesta (237,770), Volkswagen Polo (255,370), Renault Clio (298,990), and Volkswagen Golf (445,206).
The Pulsar is still available in various markets, but the configurator doesn’t work for obvious reasons. In Germany, pricing starts at €18,490 for the VISIA trim level and 1.2-liter DIG-T four-cylinder turbo with 115 horsepower. The Pulsar was briefly available with the 1.6-liter from the Clio RS, downtuned to 190 horsepower and 240 Nm for this application.
That’s a bit of a shame for both the automotive world and the workers at Nissan Motor Iberica in Barcelona, Spain. The Pulsar is also manufactured at the Guangzhou plant in China. Until December 2015, the Tiida-badged version of the compact hatchback was produced in Izhevsk, Russia.
Except for the best-selling Qashqai crossover, the Leaf remains the only other compact vehicle in the Nissan lineup in Europe. The thing is, both the Qashqai and Leaf are more expensive than the Pulsar as far as pricing is concerned.
The successor of the Almera didn’t cut the mustard, but the most disappointing detail about this story is the projected sales figure. Before it arrived at dealerships across the European Union, Nissan announced that the Pulsar would sell 64,000 examples per year if everything goes according to plan. Except it didn’t.
In regard to absolutes, the Qashqai is the best-selling Nissan in the Old Continent, ranked 5th in 2017 thanks to 230,860 sales. Higher up the list, we have the Ford Fiesta (237,770), Volkswagen Polo (255,370), Renault Clio (298,990), and Volkswagen Golf (445,206).
The Pulsar is still available in various markets, but the configurator doesn’t work for obvious reasons. In Germany, pricing starts at €18,490 for the VISIA trim level and 1.2-liter DIG-T four-cylinder turbo with 115 horsepower. The Pulsar was briefly available with the 1.6-liter from the Clio RS, downtuned to 190 horsepower and 240 Nm for this application.
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