ROSSLYN, South Africa – "I hope they have water on Mars," jokes Sarel Jacobs, the national fleet manager of the pathology specialists Ampath in South Africa.
Jacobs just completed a report for the busy holiday season in which Ampath's fleet of more than 200 Nissan NP200s travelled over two million kilometers between hospitals, airports, Ampath's various regional laboratories and the national reference laboratory in Centurion, Gauteng.
"Our fleet management system shows that since changing our fleet to use mainly Nissan NP200s, we have travelled 25,000,000 kilometers," said Jacobs. "That's over a 500 times around the circumference of the Earth and half the distance to Mars."
Jacobs has looked after the Ampath and associated practice's fleet for over 25 years, and he has tested or investigated virtually every delivery vehicle and pick-up on the market. In the end, he has standardized his fleet purchasing to only purchase the Nissan NP200 as a courier vehicle.
"It is simple math," said Jacobs. "The NP200 costs us the least to operate, service and repair. They use the least fuel of all of the options we've tested and they return very acceptable resale values when we sell old vehicles on auction."
Jacobs says that he sells his NP200 fleet at an average distance of more than 200,000 km, although he has exceeded that distance on many units. One NP200 was only sold on auction after completing 416,000 km, averaging over 560 km per day during its 24-month tour of duty and still collecting 48 percent of its original purchase price.
"It certainly helps that there are Nissan dealers near every area in which we operate," said Jacobs. "That means we can service, repair and replace an NP200 easily and effectively while under warranty, without causing unnecessary stoppages and delays to our critical pick-up and delivery service."
Ampath is one of South Africa's leading pathology laboratory groups. It has operations in all provinces and in some neighboring countries, and it provides testing facilities on-site at hospitals, in main centers, at its regional laboratories and, for highly specialized pathology testing, at its high-tech laboratory in Gauteng.
"A doctor sends in medical specimens, and he or she receives the results the next morning, often without realizing that we transported it from the client to the nearest airport and from the destination airport to our main laboratory, overnight," says Jacobs.
Jacobs' experience with the NP200 was born out in independent testing conducted by Malcolm Kinsey of the Kinsey Report. Kinsey found that the NP200 offered the most affordable service and repair parts. Given the number of kilometers travelled by the Ampath fleet, the cost of repairs alone risks becoming a large budget item.
The Nissan NP200 remains one of the best buys in the bakkie segment, thanks to its 800kg payload, class leading cabin space and standard rubberized load bin. All models are also sold with the Nissan Assured 6 year / 150,000 km mechanical warranty, which is widely hailed as one of the most comprehensive mechanical warranties in the automotive industry.
About Nissan Motor Co., Ltd.
Nissan is a global full-line vehicle manufacturer that sells more than 60 models under the Nissan, Infiniti and Datsun brands. In fiscal year 2015, the company sold more than 5.4 million vehicles globally, generating revenue of 12.2 trillion yen. Nissan engineers, manufactures and markets the world's best-selling all-electric vehicle in history, the Nissan LEAF. Nissan's global headquarters in Yokohama, Japan manages operations in six regions: ASEAN & Oceania; Africa, Middle East & India; China; Europe; Latin America and North America. Nissan has been partnered with French manufacturer Renault since 1999 and Mitsubishi Motors since 2016 under the Renault-Nissan Alliance.
For more information on our products, services and commitment to sustainable mobility, visit our website at http://www.nissan-global.com/EN/. You can also follow @NissanMotor on Twitter.
# # #