Japanese auto major Nissan hopes to double its sales volume in India this year but expects exports to remain static.
"We are expecting almost doubling our sales in this financial year. We are very well on track with Micra, Sunny and Evalia. Evalia will generate a very very new type of customers..", Nissan Motor India Managing Director and CEO Takayuki Ishida said here.
"For Nissan, Evalia buyer will be a new customer. They may not be Micra or Sunny customers", he told PTI.
Nissan, which along with France-based auto-maker Renault has a Rs 4,500 crore manufacturing facility at Oragadam near here, had sold about 40,000 units in the domestic market and around one lakh overseas last year.
Nissan's "Micra" and "Sunny" are manufactured at Oragadam plant.
"I do not think (of a) jump in our exports", Ishida said after unveiling the Evalia in Chennai market.
The car is priced at Rs 8.49 lakh for the base variant while Rs 9.99 lakh (exshowroom Chennai) for the top model.
Evalia with 80% localisation is developed by Hinduja-group company Ashok Leyland while engineering is from Nissan's headquarters in Tokyo.
"R&D is done by Ashok Leyland and engineering comes from Nissan, Japan... Of course, with Ashok Leyland we learnt something about how to produce a product at a very reasonable cost," he said replying to a question about its partnership with the heavy vehicles major.
Evalia is the second product from joint venture between Ashok Leyland and Nissan Motor India. The first product was the light commercial vehicle "Dost" which was introduced with Ashok Leyland badge in it.