The Nissan baby ute gains momentum! Sub-Navara truck hinted by Surf-Out EV concept as surprise runaway success of Ford Maverick and Hyundai Santa Cruz pick-ups catches rivals napping

Nissan’s sub-Navara truck rumours are again gaining traction, following the reveal of the Surf-Out concept.

One of four computer-generated electric vehicles (EVs) rolled out by the Japanese company to showcase its ‘Ambition 2030’ vision, the concept points to a clear direction Nissan is heading after years of lacklustre product, floundering sales, mounting losses and internal turmoil plagued by corporate power plays and damaging scandal.

While not explicitly stating that this is a production-bound exercise, the Surf-Out is meant to calm nerves over Nissan’s outlook moving forward, proving that all fingers are on the pulse – including the one chasing the runaway success of the Ford Maverick, which is already one of 2021’s breakout hits in the lucrative North American market.

It also showcases the next step in Nissan’s electrification strategy, namely the adoption of all solid-state battery (ASSB) technology within a new skateboard architecture that allows for endless varieties of body shapes and styles, as well as numerous electric motor configurations for either two or four-wheel-drive applications.

Visually, the Surf-Out concept is pure show-car fantasy at this stage, from its transparent nose cone and fishbowl cabin to a total lack of practical detailing that production vehicles require. And the ASSB tech won’t hit the markets until the end of this decade.

However, the ute concept’s size, proportions and silhouette prove that Nissan is not only thinking about smaller pick-ups than its current bestseller – the Navara – but also prioritising them as one of the brand’s key product-led saviours.

Two of the other three Ambition 2030 EV concepts are also similarly at the heart of the market – a small crossover (Chill-Out) and high-riding SUV (Hang-Out), while the Max-Out is a two-seater electric roadster that directly connects with Nissan’s illustrious history of sports cars, from the earliest Fairlady convertible and GT-R supercar to the new Z.

Nissan’s truck heritage, meanwhile, goes well beyond the Navara, with the Patrol-based Titan from North America above it and a pair of smaller utes below. This suggests that the Surf-Out (or, rather, the vehicle it eventually turns into) may also herald the replacement for the NP300 Hardbody, based on the 1997 D22 Navara and sold in Australia until the late 2000s, as well as the NP200, which is a Renault-engineered Dacia Logan ute from Romania dating back almost 20 years.

In other words, factor in all the brands in the Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi Alliance (including Infiniti, Dacia and Russia’s Lada), and the ute version of the skateboard architecture will probably have plenty of takers globally, to help spread out development costs while amortising them much faster.

Late in 2020, a senior Nissan executive told CarsGuide that sub-Navara-sized trucks majoring on efficiency and urban compatibility is where the market seems to be heading as the decade wears on.

“(Thinking) of the evolution of trucks, not only the customer – but also regulatory trends –will be demanding lighter vehicles that are more fuel efficient,” according to Nissan Motor Company senior vice president for global planning, Ivan Espinosa. “One way of solving that is through electrification, but the other is working on the weight and mass reduction.

“It’s one of the scenarios that you can imagine would come, maybe there’s a need for something more car-derived that could be of interest to customers. As we said, we are constantly looking at the market and exploring different alternatives.”

In the year since this statement was made, the Ford Maverick has been unveiled, demand for it has rocketed and – at the time of publication – it appears likely that the entire 2022 production allocation (out of Mexico only for the time being) has sold out. Ford is reportedly scrambling to boost capacity and reshuffle production of other models to meet growing orders.

It’s also worth noting that even the least-expensive versions feature a hybrid powertrain – a boon as fuel prices soar across the globe. With such a progressive specification, the Maverick’s success is a clear message for rivals to tap into the car-based compact ute market with electrification options in hand.

Though not quite as stellar, sales of the conceptually similar but slightly larger, SUV-derived Hyundai Santa Cruz have also had a healthy start in its native North American market.

Thus, as the looming next-generation Navara (expected by 2024) is rumoured to grow substantially in shape, size, footprint and price over the existing, 2014-vintage truck, it’s clear that Nissan is already on the front foot to meet the market head-on with a smaller, cheaper and EV-ready alternative. This is the main takeaway gleaned from the Surf-Out concept.  

The irony is that neither the Maverick nor the Santa Cruz are likely to be sold in Australia at any time soon, due to insufficient global right-hand-drive volume versus the cost of engineering the steering wheel to be on the right side.

What an opportunity for Nissan, particularly as history demonstrates that Australians are partial to compact and car-based pick-ups. Ford Australia basically invented the coupe-utility back in the 1930s!

Notable examples include the Datsun 1200 ute that Nissan sold here from 1971 to 1985 (and, as the B140 bakkie, until 2008 in South Africa, when it was replaced by today’s Dacia-based NP200), the now-iconic Subaru Brumby (1978-1993) that Subaru still receives replacement requests for, and the Proton Jumbuck, a Malaysian ute version of the 1992-1996 Mitsubishi CC Lancer-based Persona series that was sold here successfully from 2003 to 2010. 

Of course, medium and large trucks like the Navara, Ford Ranger, Toyota HiLux, Mitsubishi Triton and Isuzu D-Max now make up the largest single new-vehicle segment in Australia, commanding over 21 per cent of the total market year-to-date, and ahead of medium, small and large SUVs at 17%, 13.7% and 12.8% respectively.

With all this in mind, and the demise of the Australian-made sedan-based Holden and Ford Falcon utilities towards the end of last decade, the time is right and the market is ripe for smaller pick-ups.

Will Nissan be first in this country with a sub-Navara ute? Will it be electric like the Surf-out concept or petrol/diesel also? And when would it go on sale?

We know something’s brewing so watch this space.