In another case of unthought-through consequences, the cheered-on push for a stronger Chinese currency and higher wages strengthens the competitiveness and quality of Chinese products through increased automation of assembly lines.

Bloomberg reports that Nissan, together with the joint venture partner Dongfeng, is building a 5 billion yuan ($732m) plant in Guangzhou with the newest in automation. The factory is scheduled to open in 2012. In addition, Nissan spent about 1 billion yuan ($147m) on a second production line with the latest equipment at their Zhengzhou factory.

This is not an isolated incident. “The automation rate in China is on the rise,” said Nissan spokesman Mitsuru Yonekawa.  “We need to boost productivity in China,” COO Toshiyuki Shiga said. “Just because labor costs are higher in China, we won’t be leaving.”

Possibly not, says the National Federation For the Blind. According to the NYT the group is

disappointed that the [Nissan Leaf’s] driver is permitted to turn off the sound because it in effect, allows drivers to deactivate this important safety feature and thereby endanger pedestrians, especially those who are blind.

Interestingly, Tesla’s IPO presentation opens with a customer describing the contrast between Corvettes “making all that noise” and Teslas which allow the driver to “hear the birds and the ocean.” With the Motor Vehicle Safety Act likely to mandate NHTSA rules on EV safety noises, expect that marketing angle to go the way of the PeaPod…

There’s a disclosure at the bottom of this article; read it if you are interested in disclosures — JB

The Nissan GT-R is very fast. The Switzer P800 variant of the GT-R is even faster. On Ohio-style 93 octane fuel, the car will spin the rollers of an AWD dyno for well over seven hundred wheel horsepower. It so happened that a Switzer customer was willing to let me drive his car for a few days. What follows is sure to upset those who are easily upset, so if you think your tummy might not be able to handle stories of outrageous acceleration and on-road speeds, now’s the time to not click the jump.
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Toyota was (after Honda) the second Japanese car company that came down with the current Chinese strike bug. Toyota is gladly taking a back seat on this. They solved their problems much quicker than Honda. Toyota said today that their largest plant in China will definitely be open for business on Monday. Read More >

For only $195, you can run a “twilight” session at Mid-Ohio on Wednesday evenings. Given that I wanted to turn respectable times in Thursday’s Grand-Am test day, it seemed like a no-brainer. Until, that is, my ride in the Continental Challenge fell through due to the unavailability of my co-driver. Since I’d already paid for the Wednesday, I loaded up, (with a set of Hoosier A3S05 autocross tires) headed out, and arrived on Wednesday night to find precisely three cars signed up for evening practice. Neither of the others (a track-prepped M3 and a Nissan GT-R) would be running quite at my pace, but they wouldn’t be far off it, so once I passed them I wouldn’t see them again for most of the session.

Driving around a track all by yourself is an interesting thing to do, particularly if you honor the request of the Mid-Ohio School and do not directly time your laps. How do you know if you’re doing well? How do you determine how hard to push? And when you see a Viper come in on the flatbed right before your session with the rear end basically torn off (I have photos, but I want to protect the driver’s privacy), what does that do to your mindset? As it turns out, there’s another situation which is very similar to this one: amateur endurance racing.
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“Flirtation between Nissan and GM has a rich history,” said our Dear Leader. Here we go again. This time, with the whole cabal. Renault’s Ghosn has put an entry in the Match.com of the auto trade. Reuters says that Renault could work closely with a U.S. partner if the occasion arose, but it is not crucial. Not only is Renault flirtatious, they make it sound like it’s a no strings attached kind of a thing. It never is … Read More >

Ron Gettelfinger retired and Bob King took his place as President of the UAW. Mr King has some pretty big shoes to fill, but the name is a good start. After all, Mr Gettelfinger helped persuade President Obama to bail our GM and Chrysler (can’t say I blame him, quid pro quo, and all that). So what can Mr King do to really show the rank and file that he means business? Better working conditions? Input into designing cars? More job security? Nope. His next step is to make sure that Detroit and the transplants are evenly matched, so to speak. Read More >

Cars are getting better and better. But wait! For the first time since 2007, the quality of new cars and trucks sold in the US slipped! OMG! Let’s hunt down the villains …  (Quality of your brand after the jump.) Read More >

Nissan seems to have a golden hand for mini-utes. First, they had to put in a third shift in Europe for their unpronounceable Qashqai crossover. Now, news reaches us from Japan (via The Nikkei [sub]) that orders for their Juke compact SUV that went on sale in japan a few days ago, the monthly sales target of 1,300 units by over 300 percent in the first week alone. Read More >

Batten hatches! Europe is on an emergency dive. According to data just released by the ACEA, sales in May dropped by 9.3 percent compared to May 2009. Our Ford canary in the EU coal mine was right again: May numbers were worse than April numbers. In April, the EU market had been down 7.4 percent. But that’s not the worst part. Read More >

Japan appears to be serious about EVs. Evidence: Japan’s increased focus on chargers. The hard part of EVs is not to build them. The tough issue is where to charge them. And how quickly. Whether you live in Manhattan or Tokyo: As a city dweller, you hardly can put a charging station on the street or into the underground parking garage. The average suburbanite in Tokyo already has a hard time just finding a parking space (proof required if you want to buy a car). A charging station? What charging station? So the Japanese are busy building them. No wonder: 67 percent of the Japanese live in cities. (In the U.S.A. it’s even more: 82 percent.)  Who’s leading the charge for chargers? Read More >

So, Nissan has released video of its production Leaf making “forward” (above) and “backward” noises, but it seems that there may still be some details to work out. For one thing, the Leaf’s official battery range stretches from 138 miles to 47 miles, according to gm-volt.com. Your mileage may vary, etcetera. But wait, there’s more! One blogger recently tried to insure a Leaf… actually, he tried to get an insurance quote for a Leaf. Can you tell where this is going?
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Undeterred by crashing European sales numbers, Nissan is forging ahead and adds – are we reading this right? –  “a third shift at its British production line for sport utility vehicles, raising output 30 percent to nearly 24,000 units a month,” says The Nikkei [sub]. Read More >

While LeMons’ Judges Jonny and Phil took a breather to get married (not to each other) I was one of four people with the honor of taking their place. It’s true, there was a quartet of judges needed to do what those two professionals do on a regular basis, no matter what previous accounts may suggest. So I inspected close to 100 crap cars to see if they meet LeMons’ $500 purchase price criteria.  And while I did, I found the Ten Coolest Engineering Feats of The 24 Hours of LeMons. So let’s get right to it. Read More >

Wasn’t there a carmageddon? Forget about it! Nissan wants to be essentially debt free for the first time in three years in the fiscal year ending March 2011, says The Nikkei [sub]. Nissan’s net cash position gauge is expected to swing from $546m in the red to about $1b in the green. Read More >