Joe Castelli, Nissan North America's vice-president for light commercial vehicles stated Nissan will consider importing cars from Japan especially for commercial dealers, such as a van based on Nissan's current small car platform that underscores models such as the Nissan Versa and Nissan Cube. By muscling in on the light commercial vehicle market, Nissan hopes to compete with industry leaders Ford and GM, who currently have the majority of the light commercial vehicle market.
Allowing some of its models to only be sold in certain dealerships may seem strange, however for Nissan rewarding these dealers is essential. To become a commercial dealer, Nissan dealerships must make expensive changes to their facilities and staff and thus giving them exclusive selling rights to a number of vehicles is Nissan's way of encouraging more dealers to sign up to become commercial dealers.
Earlier this week, we also reported that Nissan was phasing out SUV production at its Mississippi plant to instead focus on production of a new NV2500 inspired commercial vehicle.
