Nine years ago, Nissan revived the Datsun brand to sell cheap, poorly made, unsafe cars to third-world countries.

India, Russia, Indonesia, and South Africa were the original target countries. Russia and Indonesia dropped the brand in 2020, and now India is done with it as well. Since the car is produced in India, it will force South Africans to ditch the brand. The vehicles produced by the plant in India will still be sold via the various Datsun dealerships, but only until stock runs out.

"We can reassure all existing and future Datsun owners that customer satisfaction remains our priority, and we will continue to provide the highest levels of after-sales service, parts availability, and warranty support from our national dealership network," Nissan India said in a press release.

"As part of Nissan's global transformation strategy, Nissan is focusing on core models and segments that bring the most benefit to customers, dealer partners, and the business. In India, this includes the all-new, locally produced Nissan Magnite with over 100,000 customer orders to date," said Nissan India.

We could already see the writing on the wall with the unveiling of the Nissan Magnite, which was supposed to be the halo Datsun. We wondered why the change, and suspected that it might be near the end for Datsun.

Datsun's first car following its reincarnation, the GO, set the tone for the rest of the products it would launch over the next few years.

We've had the misfortune of driving this car when it was new, and it felt about as dependable as a garden shed in a hurricane. Given the choice, we'd go with the garden shed every single time.

It also famously scored zero stars when tested by the Global New Car Assessment Program (NCAP). This test isn't nearly as stringent as the American tests. It sold well when it was new, but people soon lost interest as other brands found a way of also selling cheap cars but with at least a modicum of safety. Examples include the Suzuki S-Presso and Kia Picanto.

It's widely believed that Nissan is going to save nearly $3 billion by shutting down Datsun, which it will most likely invest in streamlining EV production.

In a recent interview with Nissan's head of design, we found out that the Japanese brand's Ariya is just the beginning of a campaign to build more EVs as well as electrify legacy models.