Archive for Nissan

The Japanese domestic market rebadging game continues as manufacturers try their best to cut development costs and maximize profit in these tough time. Nissan announced today in Japan the new Nissan KIX, a badge engineered Mitsubishi Pajero Mini. The name KIX is derived from the “kicks”, as in the term “just for kicks”.

You will probably find pretty much the same stuff under the Nissan KIX’s hood as the Pajero Mini such as the small turbocharged 660cc engine producing 64 PS at 6,000rpm and 88Nm of torque at 4,000rpm or the normally aspirated version putting out 52 PS and 62Nm, but full details will only be revealed sometime in October.

Look after the jump for a few more shots of the KIX.

Click here to read the rest of Nissan KIX announced for Japanese market

Nissan is working on the next generation Nissan March and according to Nissan design director Shiro Nakamura, the new Micra will carry Nissan’s new family look and will be designed to appeal more to the male audience but at the same while keeping a cute look.

A sketch shown above from Mag-X magazine shows that the new Micra still has the round headlamps that contribute to its “cute” factor. You can also see the typical modern Nissan grille there with the two slanted vertical bars flanking the logo. Based on the sketch, would you buy it if you are a guy?

The Renault-Nissan Alliance’s new TCe 130 engine is said to combine the best parts of both the European and Japanese halves of the partnership – Nissan’s petrol engine expertise and Renault’s turbocharging and combustion experience.

The new TCe 130 engine is a 1,397cc engine derived from the HR family of engines, which currently consist of the HR15DE and the HR16DE. The HR16DE is no stranger as it is found in both the Nissan Latio and Nissan Grand Livina found in our local market. In Renault nomenclature it is called the H4Jt (Nissan HR14DET?) and joins its Renault-derived TCe 100 1.2 liter turbocharged D4F engine as part of a family of new downsized and force inducted engines for better fuel economy and lower emissions.

The 1.4 liter engine has an aluminium sump and a quick-spooling turbocharger. Its head has been redesigned to feature ports that create a swirling effect in the airflow which mixes the air-fuel mixture more evenly, improving combustion and as a result, torque at low revs. The head also has a continuously variable camshaft angle for the intake. The use of a low-noise timing chain increases durability.

The Euro 5 compliant engine produces 130 horsepower at 5,500rpm and 190Nm of torque at 2,250rpm. It will be used in C-segment Renault cars such as the new Renault Megane III and upcoming MPVs based on the new Megane III platform. No news yet on which Nissans will use this engine.

Look after the jump for photos, a torque graph and a video of the new engine.

Click here to read the rest of Renault-Nissan turbocharged 1.4 liter H4Jt engine

NISMO has released a Club Sports package for the Nissan GT-R which consists of shocks, springs, wheels, a new undertray, and other weight reduction measures.

The NISMO GT-R shocks and spring combination consists of 18.5kg/mm front springs and 9.6kg/mm rear springs paired with Bilstein Damptronic adjustable dampers.

The wheels included in the pack are Rays forged aluminium wheels in 20×9.5 +45mm offset size at the front and 20×10.5 +25mm offset size at the rear, wrapped with Bridgestone RE070R run-flat tyres in 225/40ZR20 and 285/35ZR20 sizes respectively. There are no upgrades to the brake system in the pack so NISMO must have found them more than adequate for a “Club Sports” car.

The use of lightweight materials in the NISMO exhaust system drops 5kg from the overall weight. The included undertray that reduces drag is made from carbon fiber, and so are the seat backs of the leather bucket seats included in the package. These NISMO seats retain the car’s side airbags but removes electronic adjustment. The seats shave 6kg off the overall weight.

The kit is rather pricey at ¥5,460,000 or nearly RM175,000. This means a NISMO GT-R Club Sports could cost you over RM900,000 in total. Truly a big boy’s toy.

Click here to read the rest of Nissan GT-R NISMO Club Sport Package

Nissan has developed a parallel-powertrain hybrid system which connects an electric motor to the engine and transmission via two separate clutches. It basically sits between the engine and the transmission. This also eliminates the need for a conventional torque converter. Nissan used a rear wheel drive Infiniti G-Sedan equipped with this system as a Nissan Hybrid Electric Vehicle demonstrator.

The parallel-powertrain hybrid has 4 modes:

• Idle-stop:The electric motor is powered by lithium ion batteries to save on fuel.
• Normal driving:The engine powers the electric motor as well as charges the battery.
• Acceleration:Both the engine and lithium ion batteries power the motor.
• Deceleration:Brake energy regeneration.

The lithium ion batteries that power this system are sourced from AESC, a joint venture between Nissan and NEC. Look after the jump for a photo of the battery pack and two videos of the Nissan Hybrid Electric Vehicle.

Click here to read the rest of Nissan Hybrid Electric Vehicle

Most manufacturers encourage fuel efficient driving behaviour by rewarding the driver with a little indicator whenever the driver is driving in a fuel efficient manner. Honda uses a little green ECO light, and BMW has the classic real time fuel consumption analog meter to show how much fuel you’re using.

Nissan Motor Co is taking this one step further by developing an “ECO pedal”, which is an accelerator pedal that will push back the driver’s foot when it senses excess pressure according to driving conditions that could lead to poor fuel economy. This may annoy the driver if he is really in a hurry to go somewhere so this ECO pedal feature will have an option to turn it off.

According to Nissan, the ECO pedal combined with a real time fuel consumption display on the instrument cluster could reduce fuel consumption by between 5 to 10 percent depending on driving conditions, purely by encouraging better driving habits.

Source

The Nissan Lightfoot Quest 2008 was held over the weekend and produced some very impressive results. A total of 40 Nissan owners joined the competition. Participant cars included 12 Nissan Latio, 6 Nissan Latio Sport, 16 Nissan Grand Livina and 6 Nissan Sylphy.

The record holder for mileage during the competition was a Nissan Grand Livina 1.8 automatic which only used 3.19 liters for the 180.5km journey from Holiday Inn Glenmarie Shah Alam to Impiana Casuarina Hotel Ipoh! That’s 56.5831 km per liter! The second highest mileage was a Latio 1.8 automatic which used 4.787 liters, or 37.7063 km per liter.

This shows a few things: Nissan cars can be extremely economical if you drive them a certain way (the participants were educated on how to save fuel through economic driving techniques before embarking on the journey, plus there was a monetary reward for the best fuel economy so the driving situation may not be what any of us would consider driving within reasonably normal situations), and larger engines does not necessarily mean higher fuel consumption. The Nissans equipped with the 1.8 liter MR18DE engine seemed to clock better fuel economy in the competition.

Larger, more powerful engines do not need to work as hard as smaller engines so they can end up having equal or sometimes better fuel economy as smaller engines, but you still retain the larger amount of power reserve on tap.

Despite also working on hydrogen fuel cell vehicles, Nissan will go for electric first. Nissan is planning to sell electric vehicles (EVs) around the world by the year 2012 (with production version fleet tests beginning 2010), and the Nissan Denki Cube Concept displayed at the 2008 British International Motor Show is an example of such an EV.

Nissan CEO Carlos Ghosn said that to remain cost effective (Nissan wants an immediate profit upon EV introduction), electric cars will have to be modular and be configured differently according to each country’s needs. He gave an example: an EV in the US would need a range of at least 160km to be practical but an European market EV would do fine with an 80km range. Different communities also have different tolerances for how long they have to wait to recharge their car.

He stressed on the fact that Nissan’s new cars would be pure electric vehicles. “I don’t want a range extender. I don’t want another hybrid. It’s not going to be zero emissions in certain conditions. It’s going to be zero emissions.” The Nissan electric drivetrain will also be shared with Renault. Renault and Nissan aim to jointly sell 1 million electric cars a year, though they did not mention by when they hope this goal can be met.

In the US, Nissan would begin its EV trials in the state of Tennessee in the year 2011. Nissan is now working with the Tennessee Valley Authority electricity company to study and develop the infrastructure needed to support electric vehicles. This infrastructure included the possibility of charging stations being set up around the state so you could charge your car (and pay for charging it) anywhere other than home. Similiar deals have also been signed with Portugal, Israel and Denmark. Talks are being held with other parties in North America, Europe and Asia.

Nissan’s BIMS 2008 concept car (shown above and after the jump) takes a standard Nissan Cube and replaces its 1.3 liter internal combustion engine with an electric motor hooked up to lithium ion batteries located under the floor and seats. The batteries are from Automotive Energy Supply Corp, a JV company between Nissan and NEC.

Edaran Tan Chong Motor executive director Dr Ang Bon Beng said that ETCM is in talks with Nissan to offer a range of Nissan electric cars here in 2015, three years after the EV range’s planned 2012 global launch. Hopefully our automotive market will be more “liberalised” by then so these can be enjoyed by the public at affordable prices. JPJ also needs to figure out road tax for electric motors.

Click here to read the rest of ETCM plans to bring in Nissan electric cars in 2015

UPDATE: Nissan Navara with 174 PS launched in Malaysia! – follow the link for full information on prices, specifications and photos!

Edaran Tan Chong Motors Sdn Bhd will be launching the Nissan Navara before the end of the year, and the new pick-up truck will be a fully imported CBU model, revealed its executive director Datuk Dr Ang Bon Beng in a report by Bernama.

There are also on-going talks with Nissan for more fuel efficient compacts to be brought in. This likely means moving downmarket and offering cars smaller than the Latio such as the Nissan Pino, Nissan Note, and Nissan Moco (rebadged Suzuki MR Wagon).

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Seven seater multi-purpose vehicles (MPV) is a popular segment of automobiles in Malaysia, more so the sub-RM100k ones. So much so, Malaysians seem to lap up practically all of the affordable MPV models being dished out to them.

This brings us to Nissan’s answer to Toyota’s low cost Avanza, and to a certain extent the Innova. However, unlike the Avanza, the Latio-based Grand Livina is more akin to the Honda Stream 1.8 and the Toyota Wish 2.0, possibly just a few inches shorter but returns some RM50k in spare change!

Read a test drive review of the Nissan Grand Livina after the jump.

Click here to read the rest of Nissan Grand Livina 1.8 Automatic Review