If you’ve rented a car in recent years, there’s a great chance you were offered a Nissan of some sort. Whether it’s the Altima or Rogue, Nissan has long relied heavily on fleet sales, and the company’s most recent sales numbers show that the habit hasn’t died yet. A whopping 44 percent of its February 2024 sales, or around 40,000 vehicles, went to fleets, so get ready to be a temporary Nissan driver the next time you rent a car.
While surprising, the 44 percent number isn’t entirely out of line with Nissan’s sales through 2023, where around a quarter of its sales came from fleets during the first 11 months. That’s terrible news for its dealers, half of which are unprofitable, according to a source talking to Automotive News.
Though those numbers don’t look great for Nissan, its leader of U.S. sales, Judy Wheeler, said that the sales were due to a glut of Rogue crossovers and blamed consumers’ quicker-than-expected shift toward hybrids. The fleet sales help take some pressure off dealers to move a ton of excess inventory. The 2024 Rogue and Sentra were also delayed, so some of February’s sales should have taken place last year.
The company said it expects rental fleet sales to stabilize and noted that it would come within a point or two of its 15 percent target. Even so, it has already faced difficulties with fleet sales, as before the pandemic, it said the practice had damaged vehicle residual values and driven its dealers toward unprofitability.
Wherever the fleet sales number lands for 2024, it’s clear Nissan has work to do. A dealer told Automotive News that the brand is moving a fraction of the number of vehicles that rivals Toyota and Honda do, and it has the most days of inventory of any full-line automaker in January.
[Image: Nissan]
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