Lending further credence to earlier rumors of platform sharing between Chrysler and Nissan, The Wall Street Journal reports that Chrysler is in talks to base its next mid-size sedan on the next-gen Altima platform. Chrysler's "Project D" focuses on finding or designing a suitable replacement for the current Sebring and Dodge Avenger, models which have fallen on their faces with consumers. Other rumors point to Fiat being the chosen platform-supplier. After all is said and done, Chrysler could have a line-up which consists of a small car from Chinese automaker Chery, another small car from Nissan, a mid-size sedan from Nissan and a line of full-size sedans, pickups and SUVs of its own design. While Chrysler's main goal is to become profitable once again, there is certainly some danger in becoming a re-brander of cars from other companies, especially in the hotly-contested mid-size sedan market.
Saudis may be known for a lot of things, but let's face it – comedy is not one of them. Israelis on the other hand... have you seen The Zohan? In any event, it's not surprising that people in Saudi Arabia are outraged at something from Israel, but this time it has nothing to do with military actions or residential construction, and to be fair, while talk of boycotts is filling the air once again, they're not actually blaming Israel itself for anything. Instead, Nissan is the boycott target.
The spate was started by a commercial Israeli TV that depicts Arabian oil sheikhs getting medieval on a Nissan Tiida. The implication is that the car's fuel efficiency is harming the sheikhs' business interests. The Saudi regime, along with other oil-producing Gulf states, is threatening to boycott Nissan – which itself is collaborating on the development of the Project Better Place electric car system in Israel – if the automaker doesn't apologize.
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Nissan has finally confirmed in writing what many of us had known all along... the 2009 model year will bring the new G37 Sedan, G37 Convertible, and the G37x Coupe to Infiniti showrooms. The G35 sedan gets a bump from 3.5-liters (306 hp) to 3.7-liters (328 hp) as it now shares its engine with the coupe. Rebadged the G37, an optional brake package adds 4-piston front/2-piston rear brakes and larger rotors to the sedan. A new 18-inch wheel design and standard Scratch Shield paint (self-healing) round out the upgrades. The all-new G37 convertible marks Infiniti's first drop-top since the 1992 M30 was discontinued, and the first open-air G. Based on the G37 Coupe, it features a three-piece automatic retracting hardtop. Finally, the new G37x is a G37 coupe fitted with Nissan's ATESSA E-TSÔ all-wheel drive system. While the G37 Sedan and G37x will go on sale in September and debut in less than two weeks at the 2008 Pebble Beach Concours d'Elegance, we'll have to wait until the LA Auto Show in November for the debut of the G37 Convertible. Of course, Autoblog will be at both events to cover it for you.
Nissan has been selling a hybrid version of its Altima sedan in select U.S. states for the last two years that uses a licensed version of Toyota's Hybrid Synergy Drive. At the same time it's been working on its own hybrid and all-electric powertrains, and yesterday it unveiled two prototypes that show us exactly what it will be replacing those Prius parts with.
The first is a new hybrid system that will debut on a rear-wheel-drive Infiniti model, most likely the G. It employs a parallel hybrid system with one electric motor and two clutches that allows the gas engine and electric motor to power the vehicle at the same time. Nothing fancy there, but Nissan's new hybrid will be one of the first to use lithium-ion rather than nickel-metal hydride batteries. The smaller, more efficient batteries were developed by a joint-venture company between Nissan and NEC called Automotive Energy Supply Corporation (AESC).
Meanwhile, those same li-ion batteries are also being tested in an all-electric vehicle. Though currently installed in a JDM Nissan Cube, the system will eventually be put in all-new model with unique styling and be on the Japanese market by 2010 and sold globally by 2012. It uses a new 80kW motor and inverter and packs all the batteries beneath its floor.
The word from Japan's BestCar magazine is that Nissan has delayed the launch of the GT-R V-Spec in Japan from this fall to sometime later this year or early 2009. The reason for the delay hasn't been divulged, but as a stop-gap measure, Nissan will be releasing an Evolution or S-Tune version fitted with several of the parts developed by NISMO and fitted on the race-spec version of the GT-R that campaigned in Tokachi 24-hour enduro.
The launch of the Evolution/S-Tune model will coincide with the release of NISMO's line of performance parts, due out later this month, and will include suspension upgrades, new aero parts, wheels and tires, along with a revised ECU and a new exhaust system. Look for an official announcement from Nissan on August 20th.
As if "shift lights" weren't annoying enough... Nissan's new "ECO pedal" has been engineered to encourage good fuel economy with a servo-actuated gas pedal that will push back on the driver's lead foot when on-board computers detect wasteful acceleration. According to Nissan, vehicles equipped with the ECO pedal, and real-time fuel consumption gauges in the instrument panel, have returned a 5-10 percent increase in fuel efficiency. The Japanese automaker says it has plans to begin installing the ECO pedal in models next year, although there is no word on what models, or markets, will get the system. We're betting it's an option unlikely to show up on the GT-R anytime in the near future.
Nissan's motorsports arm has been hard at work developing parts for the GT-R, and on August 20th, R35 owners in Japan will get their first taste of NISMO's efforts. Tuning packages – ranging from street to circuit kits – will be offered in either comprehensive combinations or ala carte, and will include wheels and tires, carbon fiber aero parts, exhaust systems, tweaked ECUs and upgraded cooling kits. All the parts have already undergone rigorous testing, primarily during NISMO/MOTUL's campaign of a race-prepped R35 GT-R in the Tokachi 24 hour endurance race.
Motor Trend is reporting that Chrysler is considering a few different options now for its 2012 midsize offerings. The first option is to stick with Project D, which is gobbling up engineering and design resources. Option two is to use either Fiat's premium midsize platform or the Nissan Altima platform, and design and engineer the rest of the vehicle from scratch. Chrysler can also decide to badge-engineer one of the vehicles, which would be a far cry from the original plan to have many vehicles spawned off one platform.
Since Fiat currently doesn't have any infrastructure in the U.S. and Nissan already has ties with Chrysler (Dodge will be building the next Nissan Titan and Nissan will be building the Hornet out of Versa parts), the Japanese automaker makes more sense.
It sure looks like it could be. Reader "Uncle Evan" sent us this image, which looks like it's either a scanned PR shot of the next-gen JDM Cube3 or a good photoshop, perhaps from one of the Japanese buff mags. We're inclined to think it's the latter scenario, and that this photo might have even served as its basis (look at the shapes visible through the windshield and passenger window -- they appear to be identical in both images). In any case, the car depicted here has all of the elements first seen in the leaked Nissan photo back in May, giving us a little more to chew on while we wait for the Cube's official debut at the LA Auto Show.
As seen in the original leaked image, the wheel covers have four thin slits. Body-colored a-pillars (they're blacked out on the current car) curve softly into the roof, which has a large glass section up front. The fender bulges are more pronounced on the current Cube, and the fascia now incorporates headlamps that wrap around to the front quarter panels as opposed to being fully contained in the grille insert.
Hopefully, this is a mostly accurate depiction, because it shows an evolved Cube that really keeps the good stuff intact. After driving the Japanese version, we're looking forward to seeing what the USDM version has in store for us.
Ever since the Datsun nameplate gave way to Nissan, some fans have wanted it back. The "Nissan 510" just doesn't have the same ring. Design student Benjamin Nawka agrees, and as his thesis project at Pforzheim University in Germany, he created the Datsun XLink as a way to fulfill unrequited Datsun-lover dreams.
Just as fantastic as the idea of the Datsun name coming back are the myriad of details the designer conjured up for his concept. Working at Nissan's Yulon Design Center in Taiwan, the Datsun of Dreams was given winglets for an aircraft touch, a coupe-like shape that conceals a four-place interior, a party animal nav system that's always on the lookout for things that might entertain you, and a two-mode diesel hybrid drivetrain spinning the wheels on a height adjustable chassis that's a nod to traveling on less-developed roads -- it is a "world car" afterall. While Nissan offered support for this design, we wouldn't get our hopes up for any actual return of the Datsun name, though this is the company that offered factory-restored Z-Cars back in the 1990s, so stranger things have happened.
