Nissan North America Inc. is out to loosen the stranglehold that Ford Motor Co. and General Motors Corp. have on the business of selling light trucks to commercial customers.

The Japan-based automaker on Monday announced plans to launch three new commercial vehicles for U.S. consumers starting in 2010. The American subsidiary of Japan-based Nissan Motor Co. said it will spend $118 million to expand and retool its plant in Canton, Miss., to build vans and trucks.

Nissan executives, who announced the plans at the MGM Grand Hotel in Detroit, wouldn't elaborate on the type of vehicle they plan to sell.

GM and Ford are the market leaders in the commercial vehicle business in the U.S., with vehicles such as the Chevrolet Express and the Ford Econoline vans.

Nissan estimates the segment, including half-ton and one-ton pickups and other large vehicles sold to businesses, logs about 1.5 million in annual sales in the United States. Though overall sales in the segment are on the decline, the automaker sees an opportunity.

"Any vehicle we sell here will be a conquest," said Andy Palmer, corporate vice president of Nissan's light commercial vehicle business.

The segment also includes delivery trucks, small dump trucks and small busses.

"The market in the U.S. is going to be stagnant for a while, and it you want to grow your base you have to find a new niche," said Joseph Phillippi of AutoTrends Consulting in Short Hills, N.J. "This is a niche."

Nissan's move is a clear challenge to GM and Ford. Nissan hired Ford's commercial trucks director, Joe Castelli, to lead the effort at Nissan.

"The Econoline and Express, they're, what, like 15 years old?" Palmer said. "They're not spring chickens. I think the world has moved on."

With sales of bigger and more costly vehicles, the commercial truck business is a profitable one, Ford sales analyst George Pipas said. The Dearborn automaker just redesigned the Econoline and will soon launch a compact work van called the Transit Connect.

"I'd say to them 'Bring it on,' " Pipas said of Nissan. "Their track-record is not too solid for Nissan trucks."

GM caters to commercial customers with vehicles like the Chevrolet HHR wagon and a truck that attaches a van cab to a pickup truck body to give drivers space and fuel efficiency, spokesman Terry Rhadigan said.

"We tend to focus more on small businesses as opposed to huge orders for huge companies," Rhadigan said. "And still we have 30 percent of that (commercial) market."

GM and Ford accounted for more than 90 percent of full-size van sales last year, according to Autodata Corp.

Nissan's commercial truck business has grown rapidly around the world, Palmer said. Nissan sold 518,000 light commercial vehicles outside the U.S. last year, earning an 8 percent profit margin, Palmer said. The Nissan Technical Center North America in Farmington Hills will design the new vehicles, he said.

"Most of the people there today are already working on these vehicles," he said.

Cummins Inc. will develop and supply the powertrains. ZF Friedrichshafen AG will develop and supply transmissions.

To make room for the new trucks in Mississippi, Nissan will move production of the Infiniti QX56 SUV and Quest minivan elsewhere, the company said. The factory also builds Altima sedans, Titan pickups and Armada SUVs.