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At the 2023 Guangzhou Motor Show, Dongfeng Nissan officially announced that Nissan Pathfinder is called "Land Exploration" in Chinese. It is understood that Nissan Land Exploration is a model specially built for the Chinese market, which is not the same model as the Nissan Pathfinder currently on sale in the North American market. the new car is located in a medium and large SUV, with a 2.0T engine, and will be launched in the first quarter of next year. After listing, competitors aim at Toyota Henlanda, Volkswagen Tuen, Ford Explorer and other joint venture models.

In terms of appearance, Dongfeng Nissan Land Exploration uses the latest design style, with horizontal chromium plating strips added inside the grille before the large size, a large number of chromium plating elements inside the grid, NISSAN luminous LOGO in the center of the grille, and air intakes on both sides of the front, the new car looks very rough and hard. At the same time, it uses a three-stage air intake design to properly enhance the sense of motion of the vehicle.

From the side, the car body has straight and smooth lines, equipped with unique dense spoke rims, black eyebrows and outer rearview mirror shell, and both sides of the taillights are connected by a black decorative panel, creating the visual effect of a penetrating rear light group. In terms of size, the Dongfeng Nissan probe length, width and height are 5130/1981/1767mm, wheelbase 2900mm, positioning medium and large SUV, using a 2-2-3 7-seat layout. In the rear part, the new car uses a long and narrow headlight group, and a black panel and brand LOGO are added in the center, together with the name of the Pathfinder model below to create a good visual hierarchy.

Interior decoration, the new car uses the current very popular double screen design, showing a good sense of science and technology. At the same time, the car retains a large number of physical buttons, and the shape of the air conditioning outlet on both sides shows some tough temperament. It is worth mentioning that the overall use of materials in the car is quite generous, using a large number of soft materials for packaging, and the seat is also relatively thick.

In terms of power, according to the declaration, Dongfeng Nissan will carry a 2.0T engine produced by Dongfeng Motor Co., Ltd., code-named KR20, with a maximum power of 185kW and is expected to match a nine-speed manual self-integrated gearbox.

Pathfinder is a medium-and large-scale SUV built by Nissan for the North American market. The new generation of Nissan Pathfinder was launched at the 2021 Los Angeles Motor Show. This is also the fifth generation of the product. It is based on the same platform as the current domestic brand new generation of Infiniti QX60, so the "shadow" of Infiniti QX60 can also be seen from this model, while Dongfeng Nissan Pathfinder, which was unveiled at the 2023 Guangzhou Motor Show, has the same English name. But the appearance is very different, the latter is a model built for the Chinese market, that is, the special model. To put it simply, Dongfeng Nissan Land Exploration only uses the name Pathfinder, but it is essentially two different models.

It is learned from Dongfeng Nissan's official website that the SUV currently on sale under the brand includes the new Qijun (Compact SUV), Xiaoke (Compact SUV), Guke (small SUV) and Loulan (medium-sized SUV), while the land exploration of a large and medium-sized SUV will become the largest SUV of Dongfeng Nissan and the most expensive model of Dongfeng Nissan. With reference to the price range of Loulan from 238800 yuan, the price is expected to be at least more than 270000 yuan.

In terms of Dongfeng Nissan's sales, although there are many models in its SUV market, most of its sales come from cars. Retail data show that Dongfeng Nissan sold a total of 520100 vehicles in the first 10 months of 2023, of which Xuanyi was 288600, accounting for 55 per cent of Dongfeng Nissan's total sales. If you only look at the SUV market, in fact, only Xiaoke SUV performance is OK, but compared with the market statistics of the compact SUV, Xiaoke's performance has been far lower than in previous years.

With the rapid rise of independent brands, and under the tuyere of new energy vehicles, the advantages of joint venture brands are becoming less and less obvious. In fact, the decline of German-Japanese joint venture brands has become a consensus. In order to change the status quo, on the occasion of Dongfeng Nissan's 20th anniversary in June this year, Dongfeng Nissan held an FAMILY DAY event in Huadu, Guangzhou, to review the company's development over the years and officially announce that it has entered a new "re-entrepreneurship stage", with the goal of challenging the joint venture new energy head camp in terms of sales volume.

However, whether these new models can save Dongfeng Nissan's falling sales and reputation remains to be seen. Under the siege of its own brand, it is not easy for Dongfeng Nissan to start a business again.

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