Nissan: Global Share Growth Hinges on $3,000 Datsun

When Nissan Motor Corp. relaunches its Datsun brand in 2014, the company aims to offer cars for emerging markets at prices starting as low as $3,000, The Wall Street Journal reports.

CEO Carlos Ghosn tells the newspaper the project aims to create vehicles that are "modern and fresh" at less than half the price of Nissan's current lowest-cost model: the $8,000 Tsuru sold in Mexico.

Ghosn is convinced that ultra-low-priced cars are key to Nissan's goal of boosting its share of the global automotive market to 8% by 2016 from 6% today.

Nissan believes emerging markets, which currently account for 43% of industrywide vehicle sales, will generate 60% of global volume in 2017. With the right products, Ghosn declares, Datsun could capture at least one-third of those sales.

Attracting first-time car buyers in such markets means fundamentally rethinking the "rules" of automotive engineering. The Journal says Ghosn launched a secret project to develop a vehicle to meet that objective in 2007 after being stunned by Tata Motors Ltd.'s plan to produce the Nano sedan for about $2,500.