Govt has recently permitted carmakers to import 2,500 units of CBU vehicles without having to go through the expensive homologation process
Nissan could launch the popular X-Trail hybrid in India which we all speculated could have launched back at the 2016 Auto Expo. Unfortunately, things didn’t go as planned. Now why we are so confident about the fact that Nissan could introduce the much-awaited hybrid SUV soon? It is because carmakers in India only had the permission to import cars that were priced above or at least $ 40,000 but not anymore.
However, recently the Indian Government under their new Central Motor Vehicles Rules, 2018 has allowed the carmakers to import at least 2,500 vehicles without having to go through the lengthy homologation process. In simpler words, carmakers can now import new cars with up to 8 passenger seats be it via CBU or CKD directly.
The carmakers can also bring in up to 500 units of other class vehicles as well irrespective of their engines and pricing via the same process. However, the imported vehicles will have to follow certain rules which include that they will have to be a right-hand drive and completely new and unused vehicle.
The vehicles will also be in compliance with the international standard including, EEC (European Economic Community) and ECE (Economic Commission for Europe) or Japanese. The new rule now gives the automakers more freedom to actually bring or launch and even explore new segment which was not possible before.
That said, like plenty of other Automakers Nissan could also be considering bringing the X-Trail Hybrid along with many of their other popular global cars like the Electric vehicle Leaf in India real soon. Recently the third generation global SUV received some updates of its own. If Nissan actually plans to introduce their global lineup here in India then this could once again bring the car brand into the limelight.
As far as the Nissan X-Trail hybrid specification is concerned, the SUV is powered by an MR20D direct injection inline 4 motor which produces about 144 HP and 200 Nm of Torque. The electric motor separately produces about 41 ps and 160 Nm. The hybrid powertrain is paired to a CVT gearbox. The SUV promises to return an impressive fuel efficiency of 20.6 kmpl for the 2WD variant and 20.0 kmpl for the 4WD variant.