Should the Nissan Armada (pictured) be renamed Patrol?
Remember the Nissan Pathfinder Armada?
If the idea of a second alpha Pathfinder name eventually does win out for the new model in the Nissan executive decision-making process, then there’s the matter of what to call it. Pathfinder Pro, perhaps? It’s not unprecedented at Nissan. Remember the Nissan Pathfinder Armada full-size, body-on-frame SUV for 2004? If the current Armada were to adopt the Patrol name globally, maybe you could just call it Armada? Or perhaps it becomes part of the Xterra family, seen as a stretched or long-wheelbase big brother? The debate continues to rage. No decisions have been made.
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The one decision that has been made is the current Pathfinder will continue to hold first dibs on the name. The Pathfinder has vacillated between body-on-frame and unibody, boxy and softer, over the generations. But in recent years it has built a good reputation, a strong name, and has proven to be reliable and successful.
“The current Pathfinder is in a sweet spot,” said Pandikuthira. It has a steady demand for about 110,000 units a year with its V-6 engine and there are no plans to downsize to a turbocharged four-cylinder like many of its competitors. If it becomes hybridized in the future, it would need to be an incremental efficiency story: 5–7 mpg better than its internal combustion engine counterpart, according to the product planner.
Teaser of the forthcoming Nissan Xterra.
New Nissan Platform for Body-On-Frame Family of Vehicles
As for the new Nissan body-on-frame SUVs and trucks, they will use a new, clean-sheet platform. Nissan looked at using the underpinnings for the existing Patrol/Armada/QX80, which has a highly capable frame. It also has a lot of cost and weight and tech needed for a full-size SUV that would be wasted on a scaled-down version. Nissan decided it was better to go with an all-new architecture as a result.
The new platform also needed to be able to package a different V-6 than the one in the present QX80 and Armada. The VR35 twin-turbo V-6 in QX80/Armada is a high-tech, expensive powertrain that generates 450 horsepower in the Infiniti and 425 hp in the Nissan. While impressive, like the platform, the engine was developed for a full-size application that’s overkill for what the new midsize-oriented SUVs need, according to Pandikuthira. Nissan has yet to confirm which V-6 will power the new models.
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Nissan President and CEO Ivan Espinosa said the company had been mulling a new body-on-frame platform for a long time. The problem was the need to comply with ever-tightening emissions regulations—it would mean having to sell more EVs to meet fleet requirements. Nissan was figuring out how to do it when the emissions rules changed and the opportunity arose. Now it’s down to name games.