Archive for Nissan

This sketch of an upcoming global compact hatchback was released by NIssan yesterday. Being a global model, it’s expected to be a low cost and economical run-about suitable for sale in emerging markets but also with the potential of being kitted up for sale in more established markets.

There are definitely certain things about the car’s styling that makes you automatically assume this is the next generation Nissan March/Micra. The current March is available both as a hatchback and a convertible, competing head to head with the Colt which has the same bodytypes.

Nissan Motor (Thailand) Co., Ltd. announced that the model will qualify as Thailand’s first “Eco-car.” The Eco-car program basically gives tax-breaks to companies that develop and make energy-efficient vehicles in Thailand. The car will go into production May next year.

To be eligible for the program, the car has to achieve at least 20km per liter, and put out less than 120g/km of CO2. The engine has to be smaller than 1.3 liters if petrol-powered and 1.4 liters if diesel powered. What you get is a 50% cut in excise duty, no income tax for 8 years, and no import duty for your factory machinery imports.

The Eco-car project is basically Thailand’s bid to switch its auto-hub status to something more than just a pick-up hub – it wants to build and export fuel efficient compact cars too and the carmakers seem to be signing on in droves – Honda, Suzuki, Nissan, etc. However only Nissan has announced its eco-car so far, while the rest are still a WIP.

Click images above for enlarged image

Will Nissan ever come up with a drop top version of the GT-R to face off the 911 Turbo Cabriolet? I don’t believe there was ever a convertible version of the original Skyline GT-R series. Its little brother (now outdated though) the 350Z had a version without a roof though. Anyway to tease our imagination a little Theophilus Chin has whipped up the images you see above – the Nissan GTR-C! What do you think?

Does the car above look familiar to you? If you were online on this blog sometime last night you would have read about the new Renault Fluence. Yes, the Renault-Samsung SM3 was launched before the Fluence and the two cars are essentially one and the same.

Looking at the details released regarding the SM3 we discover more about the two cars. The platform that underpins the cars is the Megane’s Renault-Nissan C-platform, which is one segment higher than the stretched B-platforms that underpin the Latio and the Sylphy here in Malaysia.

It makes me wonder, considering the SM3 was originally a rebadge of our Sentra, will this model end up being a replacement for Nissan’s C-segment contender here in Malaysia once the Sylphy reaches its End-Of-Life? For awhile there was also a rumour that the Penske Automotive Group’s soon to be newly acquired Saturn brand would be selling this car in the US as a new model and that the Penske team were in Korea in July to do evaluations.

If you read the Fluence story you’ll also know that this car is set to be turned into an electric vehicle in 2011 and will be offered in certain countries like Israel in collaboration with Project Better Place. Basically, Project Better Place hopes to turn electricity into an easily accessible power source on the go via charging stations and automated battery-swap stations.

Look after the jump for more pix of the SM3, but what’ll interest you more is a video demonstration of Project Better Place’s battery swap station. It’s really pretty cool.

Click here to read the rest of Renault-Samsung SM3: Korean-rebadged Fluence

After letting the grey importers milk the GT-R like crazy for a while (over 200 registered on the road so far), the Nissan GT-R is now officially in Singapore through official Nissan importer Tan Chong. The Singaporean GT-R goes for S$299,500 which is a tad pricier than the grey importer’s price tags which hover in the region of S$250k.

Now what does that mean for Malaysians? Will Tan Chong bring in the GT-R here officially too, complete with a proper manufacturer warranty? Hopefully yes, but if not, at least Malaysian owners will probably be able to settle any issues with their cars at an official GT-R-trained Nissan service center (Tan Chong Bukit Timah Road) in Singapore. The other benefit of being an official import is that the car’s menu systems are all in English and it does not have a speed limiter.

For now if you still want a Nissan sportscar with an official manufacturer warranty you can check out the recently launched Nissan 370Z. Only 0.1 liters difference in displacement but oh what a difference the two turbos and the all-wheel drive makes!

Click here to read the rest of Tan Chong officially brings in GT-R… to Singapore

Edaran Tan Chong Motor has brought in the new Nissan 370Z and the new Nissan Murano (no GT-R officially imported yet!). They are going for RM354,000 and RM318,200 respectively excluding road tax, insurance and other OTR related charges such as registration. Both cars come with a 3 year or 100,000km warranty which should be a little better than buying these cars from a grey importer, though alot of importers now offer at least a 1 year warranty.

The 370Z is powered by the new 3.7 liter V6 engine and sits on a shorter wheelbase which will hopefully give the car a more agile feel. The new 3.7 liter engine from the award-winning VQ family features Nissan VVEL (Variable Valve Event and Lift) and produces 333 PS and 363Nm of torque. Both manual and auto are offered and the price for the manual and auto versions are the same.

The automatic is a new 7-speed slushbox with manual shifting while the 6-speed manual has something interesting – an automatic rev-matching called Syncro Rev Match that automatically blips the throttle to match the proper engine RPM instead of forcing the synchro to force the engine speeds together, thus upsetting the car’s weight balance.

The Murano continues to be powered by the 3.5 liter version of the VQ engine. Most Murano buyers from the grey importers are running the inline-4 version as it is cheaper to buy and also comes with significantly lower road tax costs, but nothing beats the smoothness of a V6. This engine produces 260 PS and 336Nm of torque and is mated to an Xtronic CVT and an ALL MODE 4×4-i all-wheel drive system with Vehicle Dynamic Control.

Related Posts:
2010 Nissan 370Z official details and photos
VIDEO: Nissan 370z Synchro Rev Match transmission

The Sylphy has also been facelifted in China and over there it gets more changes compared to the Japanese and Singaporean market.

In China, the Sylphy receives similiar treatments to the exterior and interior but adds a new front bumper and new tail lamps for the rear. These set of photos from China also lets us have a closer view of the new meter panel. I’m not completely sure if the Chinese and Japanese model share the same meter panel even though both have black faces, as the Japanese photos are a little low-res.

Anyway, enjoy looking at more photos after the jump. Which Sylphy do you prefer – the pre-facelift Sylphy currently sold in Malaysia, the new Japanese facelift or the new Chinese facelift?

Click here to read the rest of Nissan Sylphy gets more updates in China!

Nissan gave the Bluebird Sylphy (called just the Nissan Sylphy here in Malaysia) a minor update in May this year. No changes under the hood, just some aesthetics changes. The front headlamps now feature amber-coloured signal indicators.

The interior now gets a new design digital climate control and the instrument panel meter faces have also been changed from the previous white version to a new black coloured version. Look after the jump for a full gallery of the updated car. No news so far as to when Tan Chong will be facelifting the Sylphy here in Malaysia.

Click here to read the rest of Nissan Bluebird Sylphy gets minor updates

It’s finally here, the first of the production Nissan electric vehicles that they’ve been shouting about for the longest time now. The new Nissan Leaf is a mid-sized hatchback powered by a lithium-ion battery that can go about 160km on a full charge.

The name Leaf in relation to the car’s zero-emissions nature – according to Nissan: just as leaves purify the air in nature, the Leaf purifies mobility by taking emissions out of the driving experience.

The whole car has loads of blue themed in it. The introductory colour is called Aqua Globe. The interior (which at first sight looks Civic-like thanks to the format of the dual-level dash) features blue backlighting for the various displays. On the outside, the headlamps have a blue internal reflective design and are lit up by LED in order to be more energy efficient.

The Nissan Leaf’s lithium ion pack (installed under the passenger area under the seat and floor) produces 90kW and supplies power to the AC electric motor which produces 80kW (107 horsepower) and 280Nm of torque. It’s definitely not going to be a scorcher – it’s likely that due to gearing limitations, the top speed is limited to just over 140km/h and there is no 0 to 100km/h acceleration time given.

Different sockets for a regular wall plug and a quick charger

The 160km rated range is based on the US LA4 mode driving cycle. Nissan claims that this range satisfies the daily driving requirements of over 70% of the world’s drivers. At the end of the day, the Leaf can be charged overnight from a 200V power outlet in about 8 hours, or via a DC quick charger in under 30 minutes. The charging port is in front where the Nissan logo is.

Pricing for the new Nissan Leaf will only be announced later but according to Nissan, it will be priced about the same as a well-equipped C-segment car. The Leaf itself is well within the size of a typical C-segment hatch, with a wheelbase of 2,700mm. The Leaf is 4,445mm long, 1,770 mm wide and 1,550mm tall.

This means a Leaf could potentially be priced about the same as a Nissan Sylphy in Malaysia, which could put it well in reach for a sizeable amount of Malaysians, if only the government can revamp their various engine displacement based taxation systems.

Once that is settled there shouldn’t be a problem having one in Malaysia as Nissan has a right hand drive version pretty much ready. Look after the jump for a full photo gallery as well as 3 videos of the Nissan Leaf.

Click here to read the rest of Nissan LEAF: 160km range production electric car

Nissan previewed its electric vehicle powertrain a few days ago and used a Nissan Latio as a demonostrator vehicle. The EV system uses an in-house developed electric motor that can produce 107 horsepower and 280Nm of torque, matched with a 24kWh laminated compact li-ion battery pack.

With the demonstrator, the battery pack is placed under the vehicle floor for better packaging – this reduces intrusions into the cabin or cargo space. It can be quite tricky to mate an electric powertrain to a normal chassis that was designed for an internal combustion engine as the requirements in terms of size, shape and other factors of an electric vehicle system can be quite different from a regular car’s. An additional frame is added to the battery pack to improve the platform’s rigidity.

Thanks to the 24kWh and a regenerative braking system, the electric Latio can go over 160km on a full charge, based on the US LA4 mode driving cycle.

Nissan will also be adding a remote control and monitoring function to its electric cars. All Nissan EVs will communicate with a central IT system 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Alerts can be sent to your mobile phone. With the system, users can check the car’s current charging status and current range capacity. A map can show the current available driving radius so its easier to visualize where you will be able to drive.

You can also control the air conditioner to turn on or off at predefined times, and charging can also be set to be done only within certain timeslots even though the car is plugged in so that you can take advantage from cheaper night electricity rates in some countries.

Click here to read the rest of Nissan exhibits EV system in a Nissan Latio

Nissan has announced a new driving aid system called the Navigation-Cooperative Intelligent Pedal which basically uses data from the car’s satellite navigation system to help smoothen the drive when it comes to a curving road.

How many times have you approached a bend and then suddenly realised you’ve gone in too fast? Can you see ahead past a blind corner in a bend? Some bends can sharpen mid-way… and then you panic and have to deal with understeer or worse! If the system detects that you are about to do this, it sounds an audible warning.

If you persist, the system moves the accelerator pedal upwards to assist the driver to release it. Once the foot is lifted off, the system will smoothly reduce vehicle speed by braking. The system will debut on the new Nissan Fuga when it is unveiled in fall 2009. As it currently is, the Fuga is the Japanese name for the Infiniti M.

A similiar system was introduced earlier this year on the Toyota Crown Majesta, though it doesn’t work exactly the same. The Toyota system uses gear changes and engine braking to help slow the car down in anticipation of a corner (the car is aware of this via the in-car GPS system too) or a toll booth.

In addition to that, the Toyota system will activate a brake-assist function if it thinks the driver is too late in decelerating when approaching a stop sign or a junction.