Nissan Evalia pre-orders start in Indonesia

The Nissan Evalia MPV was unveiled at the 2012 Auto Expo in New Delhi and aims at claiming a share of the sever-seater people carrier pie that is currently being divided among the Toyota Innova, the Mahindra Xylo and the Maruti Suzuki Ertiga. While the MPV is still a few weeks away from launch in India and Indonesia (the two markets that the Evalia will be sold in, initially), Nissan has already begun taking pre-orders for the MPV in Indonesia. Interested buyers can book the seven-seater Evalia for a sum of IDR 50,00,000 (Rs 30,000 approx.)

In fact, within a week of the bookings having opened, Nissan Motor Indonesia has managed to get orders for over 800 Evalia MPVs. While that number is quite optimistic for a passenger vehicle which hasn’t even hit showroom floors yet, one must acknowledge the fact that Indonesia loves MPVs and people-carriers as much as India loves small cars. The Maruti Suzuki Ertiga on the other hand has managed to amass 12,000 bookings in Indonesia within a month of its launch. From what we have seen at the Auto Expo though, the Evalia definitely manages to pack a lot more space, features and creature comforts than the Ertiga does – however pricing will play an important role (among other things) in deciding how successful the Evalia will be in Indian and the Indonesian market.

If reports are to be believed, the Evalia will be available in two variants – SV and XV. The features include ABS with EBD, brake boosters, dual airbags, parking sensors, rear-view camera, second and third row cooling and tons of storage space. The Evalia will be powered by the well-known Nissan-Renault 1.5 dCi diesel motor that puts out 110 PS of power and 150 Nm of torque. We hear that Nissan will offer a five-speed manual or an optional four-speed automatic transmission in Indonesia – but we are unsure if the latter will come to India.

According to reports, Nissan will launch the Evalia in Indonesia by July 2012. The expected price for the Evalia in Indonesia is between Rp160 million to Rp180 million (Rs 9.4 lakh to 10.6 lakh approx). The Evalia will be exported from India as completely knocked-down kits (CKDs) to Indonesia. The Indian launch of the Nissan Evalia is expected happen in August, 2012 and we expect slightly different packaging and more number of variants for the local version of the MPV. The pricing could be between Rs 9 to 12 lakh where it slots between the Ertiga / Xylo and the Innova. Stay tuned as we bring you more dough on the Nissan Evalia as it inches closer to launch.