2015 will be the Nissan Xterra's final model year. The final nails in the coffin were hammered in by an increasingly popular crossover market, total domination on the off-road category by the Jeep Wranglers, and Nissan's inability to affordably recreate the Xterra with modern regulatory concerns in mind.
This doesn't mean Nissan isn't competing in the SUV market any more, but most of the automaker's remaining SUVs are true crossovers. Nissan USA sold 376,388 Rogues, Pathfinders, Muranos, Jukes, and Titan-based Armadas in 2014.
Xterra volume, meanwhile, tumbled 77% over the course of a decade, falling by 55,942 units to 16,505 U.S. sales in 2005.
Although the nameplate had mostly levelled off over the last four years, that levelling off involved just 69,714 sales over a four-year period between 2011 and 2014, fewer than than the total number of sales achieved by the Xterra in 2005.
But the Xterra was initially popular, both in the automotive press and in the North American market. Not that it's a sure sign of future success, but Motor Trend twice named the Xterra its Sport Utility Of The Year. Sales in the model's first full year, 2000, climbed to 88,578 units. As recently as 2005, the last time Nissan sold more than 70,000 in a calendar year, it was America's 23rd-best-selling utility vehicle.
It fell to 61st in 2014 – behind the Mazda CX-9 and Range Rover Sport but ahead of the Porsche Cayenne and Toyota FJ Cruiser – and ranks 67th through the first two months of 2015, behind Nissan's own Armada but ahead of the Audi Q3.
To say that there's no demand for this type of vehicle is to deny the success of the Jeep Wrangler. But the Wrangler isn't just any other off-road capable SUV. Iconic styling, a pair of bodystyles, an aggressive base price, and a convertible bodystyle recently helped the Wrangler fend off a challenger from the planet's largest automaker: the FJ Cruiser from Toyota.
In 2014, a record-setting year for the Wrangler, 175,328 were sold in America. That was surely a sign of sufficient brightness to assure Nissan that drumming up the volume required to support a necessary new model would prove too difficult.
Timothy Cain is the founder of GoodCarBadCar.net, which obsesses over the free and frequent publication of U.S. and Canadian auto sales figures.
The post The Numbers Behind The Nissan Xterra's Demise appeared first on The Truth About Cars.
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