Nissan Looks Forward to Building Light Commercial Vehicles, Including Hybrids, Electrics and Possible Heavy-Duty Pickup

On the same day Nissan began a $118 million expansion of its Canton, Miss., assembly plant, where it will build light commercial vehicles for the North American market, the company unveiled the NV2500 full-size commercial van concept at the Work Truck Show.

"The NV2500 shows that we want to change the rules of the game," said Joe Castelli, Nissan's vice president of LCV and fleet. "We're looking forward to getting in and competing in the commercial segment by addressing customer needs with creativity."

The NV2500 concept features some of the creative (though not necessarily production-intent) ideas Nissan is thinking about, such as a mobile office and design workspace that includes a computer workstation, a fold-down conference table, numerous storage compartments, cargo/tool tie-down racks, nearly 6 feet of interior height and an awning-style side panel that opens to create an outside workshop table.

We'll have full video coverage of the NV2500 concept later this week.

It's not just about providing the commercial market with new productivity tools and applications, though. Castelli says Nissan's North American LCV unit has to be green, too.

"A hybrid or electric vehicle has to be considered for commercial," Castelli said. "I'm pushing for these vehicles. The technology is going there and I think it's a good opportunity. If I'm at a construction site all day or I'm a florist making lots of stops every quarter-mile, then I can get away with an electric vehicle."

Castelli says a small van like the new Nissan NV200, which debuted at the Geneva Motor Show, would work better than a big van like the NV2500 as a fully electric vehicle, but at this point he's not saying no to any idea in LCV product development.

What about the Nissan Titan? Does the half-ton pickup still have a role to play after Chrysler and Nissan jointly announced they were halting plans for Chrysler to build the next-generation Titan off the 2009 Dodge Ram 1500 platform?

"It's too early to speculate what might happen with Titan," Nissan spokesman Brian Brockman said. "It's still the plan to hopefully do the OEM agreement [with Chrysler], if it makes sense."

Castelli says there's a material need in Nissan's LCV plans for a work truck, regardless of what happens to the Titan in the short term. Parts of the current Titan might even evolve into something new.

"We've got to have something like a heavy-duty pickup," Castelli said. "Go by any construction site and there are still pickups there. I'm asking, can I build anything off the [current F-Alpha platform] Titan? Is the suspension heavy enough? Can I make a 250 [three-quarter-ton] or 350 [one-ton] out of it? Obviously, it has a different frame-rail system that precludes us from making a chassis cab out of it. Eventually, we also want to be in Classes 4 and 5, too. It's a long journey."

"I hope it works out [with Chrysler]," he said. "The [next-gen half-ton Titan] is a dynamite-looking truck."