Nissan Norway vs Nissan Canada

One of the wonders of our modern times is that in a few clicks, you can try to walk in someone elses shoes. Much ink has been spilled over the looming 2035 EV mandate from the Canadian federal government. Why not have a peak at how the car shopping experience might be closer to 2035 by looking at nissan.no? After all, 90% of new vehicle sales in Norway are electric (source). At first glance, not much is different between Nissan.ca and Nissan.no, both feature their SUVs heavily, and in a few clicks, commercial vehicles and cars can be found.

Indeed, the Nissan Aryia features heavily on both websites, but the gas-powered and optionally hybrid, Quashqai is there too. Lets take a closer look at the models listed on the website. I have done my best to iron out any model differences. For example, the Nissan Rouge is sold as the X-Trail hybrid in Europe. Do leave me a comment if you notice a discrepancy.

Model	Powertrain	Nissan.no	Nissan.ca
Kicks	Gas	Yes	Yes
Qashqai	Gas/Hybrid	Yes (Hybrid too)	Gas only
Rouge/X-Train	Gas/Hybrid	Yes (Hybrid too)	Gas only
Murano	Gas	No	Yes
Pathfinder	Gas	No	Yes
Armada	Gas	No	Yes
Versa	Gas	No	Yes
Sentra	Gas	No	Yes
Altima	Gas	No	Yes
Leaf	Electric	Yes	Yes
Ariya	Electric	Yes	Yes
GT-R	Gas	No	Yes
Z	Gas	No	Yes
Frontier	Gas	No	Yes
Townstar	Electric	Yes	No
Primastar	Gas	Yes	No
Interstar	Gas	Yes	No
	Number of Models	8	14

Interestingly enough, Nissan.ca has Nissan.no beat by some 6 models. Indeed, Nissan.ca has more SUV’s, a pickup truck and sports-cars, something that Nissan.no does not. Strangely enough, Nissan.ca has nothing in terms of vans and commercial vehicles, where Nissan.no has the electric Townstar, and two combustion cargo vans.

Some of this has to do with market differences between Canada and Norway. Canadians somehow love their SUVs and pickup trucks, which account of 9 out of every 10 private vehicles sold in Canada (source), thus Nissan.ca would need to have some SUVs and pickup trucks in order to be competitive. Similarly, commercial vehicles in Norway might prefer to be smaller, hence it might find more of a market for the Townstar/Primastar and Interstar than in North America.

It is interesting that Nissan.no has only the Leaf in the “car” catteogry, while Nissan.ca has the Leaf plus the Versa, Sentra and Altima. And thats in SUV crazy Canada (source). Perhaps that is simply because in Canada everyone else has given up on the humble car, leaving Nissan.ca still with a sensible business.