Why does the Nissan Leaf get a 99 MPG from the EPA? After all, you could pour gallons of gasoline into the thing and it wouldn’t budge an inch. It is, after all, an electric car. But hey, this ain’t America if a consumer can’t glance at a label and say “gosh honey, check out how many em-pee-gees this one gets. That sure is a whole lot of em-pee-gees.” And at least the EPA did include the most important detail: the Leaf’s battery range is rated 73 miles, or about three quarters the range Nissan had been claiming. Of course, as is always the case, your mileage may vary… only the amount of gasoline required by a Nissan Leaf won’t.
Have you ever wondered what would happen if a man went out in the streets, throwing money in the air? Handing money out to passer-bys? Well Nissan decided to find out and hired an actor to do just that. It has created quite a ruckus! In more ways than one … (Read More…)
If you’ve ever been to a topless beach, you know the basic problem: you expect a bunch of topless Jags and Maseratis, but what you actually get is this, the Nissan Murano CrossCabriolet. Four thousand pounds of roly-poly crossover blessed with the totally misguided belief that people want to see it with its top off. And it would be one thing if this were just a one-off concept, but it sounds like Nissan is considering actually making this thing. We’ll keep a corner of our eye on this as the LA Auto Show kicks off… but we’ll be sure to avoid eye contact.
As mentioned in an earlier article, I’m getting old. Far too old to understand the younger generation. But with experience comes cynicism (maybe that should be a TTAC slogan?). The more things change, the more things stay the same. In the recent cutbacks, which the new UK government introduced, a fund called the “Grant for Business Investment Scheme” (GBI) is to be phased out by 2012. The fund was used by Nissan for their plant up in Sunderland, Tyne and Wear. Production of the Leaf came to the UK on the back of a £20.7m grant from the GBI fund. Well, Nissan didn’t take too kindly to the news of the dry money well, says the Daily Mail. (Read More…)
About a month ago we saw the first renderings of the 2012 Nissan Versa, and were more than a little taken aback at the model’s apparent move from geeky hatch to sleek sedan. Now the first images of the Chinese-market Nissan Sunny have hit autohome.com.cn [via Burlappcars.com], and they show a rounded little sedan that’s equal parts Altima and IS250. The Sunny nameplate is known as the Sentra in the US, but there’s some speculation that these images actually portray the next-gen Versa (based on their similarity to the earlier-leaked rendering). Alternatively, Nissan could be going for a similar look for both its compact and subcompact offerings. In any case, these pictures hint that Nissan is not taking improved offerings like Chevy’s Cruze and the forthcoming Ford Focus and Hyundai Accent sitting down. The compact and subcompact segments are heating up as designs improve, and Nissan is not about to be left behind.
Automotive News [sub] hasn’t received the memo that EVs need good news, badly. Instead, AN hammers the last nail into the electric vehicle’s coffin. If range anxiety, the lack of 220V outlets at your curbside parking spot, and high prices aren’t enough to keep you away from an electric car, how about “an Orwellian future where faceless international corporations track your every move. Drop by the bar after work, call in sick to go to the beach, visit your mistress’ house. The all-seeing eye of Big Brother knows where you’ve been.”
More than any other mainline automaker, Nissan has bet heavily on electric vehicles penetrating the mass market within a reasonable time period. Whether or not that gamble will pay off remains very much to be seen, but the firm’s post-Leaf EV plans are less than entirely inspiring. Yes, there will be an Infiniti version of the Leaf for the US market (and possibly an EV delivery van for Europe), but after that, Nissan says its next EV will be a retreat to the golf cart-style Neighborhood Electric Vehicles that spread rapidly when gas prices spike two years ago before dropping off the map. Called the “New Mobility Concept,” this open-air Nissan (the Renault version is called the Twizzy) will be faster than a NEVs, with a top speed of 47 mph planned. Range is also better than the typical lead-acid battery-powered NEV, with about 60 miles of range planned. Still, this is a huge step backwards from the Leaf, and it speaks to a basic lack of confidence in the Leaf’s radical mainstreaming effort for EVs. Given how much Nissan has riding on the Leaf, that’s a troubling sign indeed. [via Automotive News [sub]]
Americans like big cars. Even when designing a small car for the American market, it’s important that the small car be as big as possible. Sound like an oxymoron? It should. In a country where big is beautiful, the small practical cars go largely unnoticed, and so it is with the Nissan Versa. If you read TTAC regularly, you might know the Versa outsells everything in its segment, but did you know it just got a mid-cycle refresh? Even in the midst of a downsizing and belt-tightening economy, that news hasn’t made much of a splash. To find out if the cheapest four door car in America is worthy of more attention, we took a week to live with a Versa 1.8.
No automaker has more to gain –and lose– in the early-adopter EV game than Renault-Nissan, and CEO Carlos Ghosn knows how the game is played. Nissan is investing $4b to rollout electric cars in the US, Japan and select Western European markets at the end of this year, but despite being committed, Ghosn insists that EVs aren’t ready to stand on their own yet.He tells Automotive News [sub] that
These are mature markets where governments give incentives to consumers. Two years of government support are needed to jump-start these markets and then the products will grow on their own and take off
When people talk about red hot car markets, the usually mean BRIC: Brazil, Russia, India, China. Nobody ever mentions Indonesia. Indonesia? That island nation has some 235m people, three quarters the population of the U.S.A. But it’s very under-motorized. Last year, Indonesians bought only 486,000 cars, 20 percent less than in the year before. Indonesia’s car production is not much to write home about either. According to OICA, Indonesia produced 464,816 motor vehicles last year. In 2005, they made 500,710. So let’s forget about them, right? Not so fast. (Read More…)
Toyota, king of the hybrids, won’t sell their first plug-in hybrid before 2012. But they already have their kind of a perception gap. The car will be able to go 23km (14.29 miles) on battery alone, then, the ICE engine will kick in and start making electricity. However, research shows that only a few people know about the electric-only feature. Or do they care at all? (Read More…)
When Renault, Nissan and Daimler all tied up together many people thought this was just a symbolic gesture. The venture may help each other out in designs and joint ventures, but personally, I didn’t see anything of real substance happening from it. Well, it seems that Nissan and Daimler are taking this cross holding seriously. Very seriously. (Read More…)
In this first look at Nissan’s 2011 Versa, we’re seeing a very different car from the high-roofed, gangly subcompact that has been dominating the B-segment sales charts all year. Which begs the question: should Nissan mess with success? With Kia’s Soul sneaking up on the Versa in year-to-date subcompact sales, will a sleeker sedan keep the Versa riding high, or will it lose out to boxier, more practical offerings?
I should have known from the breathless senior in long shorts and fancy jewelry: “AC Propulsion is over there. They won the X-Prize!” I should have known from the Long Curly Hair Middle-Aged Dad with Toddler and Pregnant Hippie Wife. I should have known from the fact that this first day of the national “Drive Electric Tour Sponsored by Nissan Leaf” was in Santa Monica. But I didn’t, and so
color moi tres surpris when the little Leaf driving demo was actually the biggest part of the 2010 Alt Car Expo. Petrolheads beware.
With sales of its aging city car circling the toilet, Roger Penske’s Smart USA has reached a deal with Nissan to sell a Smart-branded version of a Nissan-developed four-door B-segment car, likely the Versa. Though Penske’s organization apparently pushed for and announced the deal, and the model will be exclusive to the US, the Detroit News calls the move “part of the growing cooperation between the Renault-Nissan Alliance and Daimler AG.” Penske says
We are proud to be a partner with both Daimler and Nissan, two companies focused on bringing high-quality, fuel-efficient products to the U.S. market
With the five-seat, American-size Smart coming from Nissan, the forthcoming Smart ForFour (which Daimler is developing in partnership with Renault) seems unlikely to make a stateside appearance. This despite considerable cost reductions compared to previous Smart models by co-developing with Renault, creating a modular platform with common engines, and building the ForFour in Eastern Europe. After all, you can can work all you want to make a make a European car cheaper, but rebadging a Mexico-built Japanese model will always be cheaper. Besides, Americans won’t know the difference… right?
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