The Nissan name was first used in 1933, but the company's history goes back much further. Originally known as Kwaishinsha Motorcar Works, the company produced its first automobile, the DAT, in 1914. DAT later became Datsun (son of DAT) in 1931 and Datsuns went on to become the first mass-produced vehicles in Japan. Americans got their first look at the Datsun in 1958 - the 1200 Sedan. The Datsun 240Z was released as a 1970 model and it became the best selling sports car in the world, selling 500,000 units in less than 10 years.
Two years ago, Nissan sent a bizarre little beach buggy of a concept, called the Qazana, to the Geneva Auto Show. At the time Autoblog’s Chris Paukert called the concept that would become the Nissan Juke “so bizarre it almost looks French”… but little did anyone know the French would eventually claim the Juke’s heritage. Now, Renault, the French leg of Carlos Ghosn’s Renault-Nissan alliance is bringing their own interpretation of the compact-coupe-ute with this, the Renault Captur. Will it being searing eyeballs on the French street any time soon? Ghosn only knows…
Is the auto industry headed for a price war? Hyundai Motor USA CEO John Krafcik seems to think so, telling Reuters
I think we can officially say that a price war broke out in the industry. There is apparently a lot of pressure to deliver sales results. I would call this a step backward for the industry. This is short-term thinking in a long-term process that hurts manufacturers and consumers.
Krafcik says GM kicked off the rush for increased volume by cutting prices in January, and that Toyota (which has increased its incentives by 37.5% since last January, according to TrueCar) “quickly” responded by matching The General’s price cuts. Honda, Nissan and Chrysler have also kept their incentives high, and Chrysler has told Automotive News [sub] that it plans on increasing sales by 45% this year. Says Krafcik
We’ll see if others decide to follow. It’s certainly not in our plan right now.
Krafcik has a point: though sales have recovered over the last year as the economy has come back from the depths of recession, industry-wide incentive spending is up 1.3% in the last 12 months. Rather than taking advantage of the economic recovery to bring incentives down and transaction prices up, automakers appear to be focused entirely on volume. That’s certainly the message GM has sent by announcing that it would no longer release its incentive data. And, as Krafcik points out, the industry has already suffered mightily from such short-term, unsustainable thinking… but not everyone shares his concern.
Between Nissan’s Esflow concept and this BMW Vision ConnectedDrive concept, it’s becoming pretty clear that “clean fun” is the theme of the forthcoming Geneva Auto Show. But BMW isn’t just signaling the production look of its EfficientDynamics sportscar… the Vision ConnectedDrive also demonstrates BMW’s dedication to managing the coming information overload created by ever more technologically-dependent automobiles. Autocar reports:
BMW knows that the day is rapidly approaching when on-board sensors will deliver so much data to the driver that innovative ways are needed to present the information so it can be absorbed and acted upon quickly.
Intended to replace the conventional instrument cluster, the next-gen HUD will display info like road speed and sat-nav directions in three-dimensions.
This tech allows different information layers to be superimposed on top of one another, in turn allowing the driver to display the required data in the foreground, while ghosting less significant info into the background.
By providing this ‘optical depth of field’, BMW reckons it can provide the driver with multiple additional information sources without having to redesign a car’s fascia to take an additional display screen.
Just another step towards the day when Graphical User Interfaces become as important to cars as styling and performance.
What happens when Nissan re-imagines its Leaf EV’s internals into a “sports car of the future,” inspired by its long line of Z cars? You’re looking at it. Nissan will show this Esflow concept at the Geneva Auto Show, and, based on the reaction it receives, they’ll consider a production model. Though it uses Leaf electronics, the Esflow is being presented on a “bespoke” RWD platform, with a pair of electric motors driving the rear wheels. And the Leaf’s battery was likely improved upon for this concept, as Nissan claims about 150 miles of range and a sub-5 second 0-60 time.
I’m having a bit of a dilemma in the car buying/selling front. First off, I’m a 21 year old college student. Last year, using money gifted to me by my wealthy grandparents (yes, I’m a spoiled brat. Sorry) I impulsively purchased a 97 Mercedes C36 AMG (yes, I’m an awful spoiled brat). It had a plethora of problems including the previous owner installing a faulty air intake, improperly lowering the car and damaging the suspension, and some thermostat issue. Several thousand dollars later, my mechanic got it back to speed. It hasn’t had any problems since, but I definitely can’t afford to fix it if anything else were to happen. Furthermore, premium gas is a bitch, especially here in Vancouver where gas is at an all time high. It doesn’t snow often here, but I’m not comfortable driving it when it does. I am contemplating selling the C36 and purchasing something more practical (I’ve had it listed on classifieds for months, but eh, no bites)
Most foreign-based automakers see the United States as a market first and a production center second: If sales are good enough, production will follow. Mitsubishi, on the other hand, seems to be taking the opposite approach. The Japanese automaker has announced [via Automotive News [sub]] that it will replace production its weak-selling midsized offerings (Galant, Endeavor, Eclipse) at its Normal, Il factory with one model: the Outlander Sport compact crossover. The Outlander Sport (known elsewhere as RVR and ASX) is Mitsu’s newest vehicle, but the firm still envisions only abput half of Normal’s planned 50k units of production to be sold in North American markets (a safe estimate considering it’s still not outselling the Lancer). The other half will be exported to Russia, Latin America and the Middle East. That’s right, Mitsubishi is keeping its only UAW-represented workforce in order to build compact crossovers for export.
We thought we know all the problems that could face the plug-in EV. As there are cost, range, charge time, unavailability of charging stations for apartment dwellers, road tax, the unexpected emergency while the car is on the drip, and sundry others.
Gas 2.0, a site very sympathetic to anything that helps the “world coming to terms with its oil addiction,” found yet another problem that hadn’t even occurred to us: Read More >
As a long time reader and a new financial advisor, I am seeking advice from you and your readers concerning choices for a second-hand automobile. Here are the constraints:
1) $10,000 or less
2) Would prefer avoiding GM & Chrysler
3) 4-doors required (for clients and/or two under-five children)
4) Reasonable annual maintenance
5) Sporty OK but not flashy — message is ”prudently successful” not ”mid-life crisis on the client’s dime”
6) I’m a 47 year-old, married, 2 children, in southwestern Connecticut.
As a starting point, I see this as two basic options — Audi/BMW/Acura on the sporty side or Mercedes sedan on the prudent side. Which cars(year/make/model) do you or your readers suggest I consider? Thanks!
O Brave New World, that has such automobiles in it! Welcome to the twenty-seven-thousand-dollar, mainstream-brand, non-specialty-model compact car. Open the door. All but the most perversely sybaritic will find their list of requirements fulfilled. A direct-injection engine teams with a twin-clutch transmission to deliver up to forty miles per gallon. We grip a steering wheel with brash aluminum trim and a half-dozen complex controls. The instrument panel has an LCD screen which surpasses the optional hardware in cars like the Audi A5, while the center stack has better resolution than your netbook. Everything you can see or touch feels ready to challenge your neighbor’s G35 or 328i for perceived quality.
The Ford Focus Titanium is, theoretically, the direct descendant of the 1981 Ford Escort “world car”, but on the road it feels much more closely related to the old Nissan Primera, known to us as the Infiniti G20. Read More >
Surprised? Don’t be. President Obama’s goal of getting a million EVs on the road by 2015 is headed nowhere without some serious changes, as the OEM EVs are stuck with high prices in the short term and capacity ramp-ups in the middle term. Making progress on either the price point or the production numbers (both of which are necessary to punch EVs into the mainstream) isn’t going to happen unless gas prices skyrocket or, as Nissan CEO Carlos Ghosn puts it, government “jump starts” the market. Now, Automotive News [sub] reports that an Indiana University study argues that Obama’s million-EV goal might not be accomplished by 202 without further government assistance. On the other hand,
With increased government intervention and perhaps a global surge in oil prices, electric vehicles could capture as much as 15 percent of the U.S. market by 2025-30
By which point, the CAFE standard could well be 62 MPG combined (unadjusted)… making the argument for EVs even tougher. But now we’re getting ahead of ourselves… Read More >
Going through my old 2X2X2 35mm stereo slide pairs for posting on Cars In Depth (I’ve been messing around with twin-film-camera 3D for about 15 years now), I came across some shots of the ever-varied fleet of late-80s/early-90s Japanese subcompacts I owned during the heyday of San Francisco’s notorious City Tow car auctions.Read More >
TTAC’s on top of all of the monthly sales news, as the industry records its first month of sales in the new year. (Data courtesy Automotive News [sub] ). Ford and GM, the first automakers to report, show solid gains, seemingly confirming analyst estimates of a 12.4m unit SAAR this month. But don’t read too much into the trend, as Reuters reports that auto sales momentum stalled in the final weeks of the month, prompting JD Power to lower its SAAR expectation from 12.2m units to “between 11.5m and 12m.” According to a JD Power spokesman,
the sudden slowdown in sales in January could reflect both the impact in winter storms and the absence of new sales incentives from major automakers. Those kinds of discounts, including cash-back offers, were down 12 percent in January from December
Check back regularly as TTAC unravels January’s sales performance from all of the automakers.
In my Nissan Frontier Capsule Review, I briefly mentioned the fact that I’d had a Saab 9-3 prior to said Frontier. Well, as it turned out, I ended up having the Saab after the Frontier, as well. Before I could take possession of said little turbocharged hatchback for the second time and send it back to the lease company where it belonged, however, I had to beg, threaten, and — depending on your definition of the word — perhaps steal.
Now that most of the large car companies have supplied their numbers, TTAC has compiled its annual table of the world’s largest automakers. In doing so, we have attempted to come as close as possible to the methodology used in the official OICA list, which will be published some time this summer. Here is the 2009 version as a reference. And here are TTAC’s Top Ten of 2010: Read More >
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