Archive for Nissan

The Malaysian media had a chance to get acquainted with Mr Carlos Ghosn, President and CEO of Nissan Motor Co. Ltd. recently at Tan Chong Motors Assemblies Plant in Serendah, Selangor.

Built at a cost of RM230 million over a 47.3 acre site, it currently produces Nissan models like the Latio, new Grand Livina and the soon-to-be-launched Sylphy.

The Serendah plant has been up and running in less than a year from end of construction. Plans are afoot for production to run a 2nd shift by September, thereby doubling up roll-off to 2,400 units a month.

Read the report by Dr. Long after the jump.

Click here to read the rest of Carlos Ghosn and Nissan in Malaysia

Picture by Dr Long – click to enlarge.

Edaran Tan Chong Motor Sdn Bhd has officially announced that the Nissan Sylphy will be launched sometime in Q2 2008. Members of the media were given a sneak preview today at Edaran Tan Chong Motor’s Serendah assembly plant in Hulu Selangor.

The Serendah assembly plant was built at an investment of RM230 million and employs 624 people. Serendah capacity is currently at 1,440 units a month with a single shift. By September 2008, a second shift will be up, increasing total capacity to 2,400 units. It assembles the Nissan Latio sedan and hatchback, the Nissan Grand Livina and soon, the Nissan Sylphy.

The Nissan Sylphy is known as the Nissan Bluebird Sylphy in other countries. It is available in both 1.5 liter and 2.0 liter variants, and Malaysia will likely get the 2.0 liter variant, powered by the MR20DE engine. This is evident from the 2.0 CVTC badge on the preview car’s boot lid. The 1.5 liter model would not fit into the current Nissan line-up. Nissan aims to sell between 200 to 500 units of the new Nissan Sylphy per month when launched.

The 2.0 liter engine produces 133 PS at 5,200rpm and 191Nm of torque at 4,400rpm, with 90% of the torque, or about 172Nm available from 2,000rpm onwards. This is the tuning most commonly installed in Sylphys around the world. Other variants of the MR20DE like the one found in the Nissan Qashqai produces 140hp at 5,100rpm and 193Nm of torque.

Read the linked related posts below to see spyshots of the Nissan Sylphy on test, as well as other articles about the Sylphy. Look after the jump for more live preview images of the Sylphy.

Related Posts:
2006 Nissan Bluebird Sylphy photos and specifications
Nissan Bluebird Sylphy spotted in Malaysia
Taped up Nissan Bluebird Sylphy spotted again!

Click here to read the rest of ETCM: Nissan Sylphy coming in Q2 2008

The Nissan Maxima is a large front-wheel drive sedan sold in a few countries like the US and Canada, and is based on the A34 Altima platform. It is not the same Maxima as another smaller car sold in other regions, which is based on the Cefiro/Teana instead.

This is the new 2009 model which will be unveiled sometime this week. Rather irrelevant to our market really, as it is a huge sedan with a large displacement, aimed at the North American market and other similiar countries which like these type of cars. But it’s interesting to see completely different product lines developed for different regions from a single car manufacturer.

No details have been revealed about the car yet, but we should get some along with a whole set of other images soon.

Two more shots after the jump.

Click here to read the rest of Next generation 2009 Nissan Maxima preview

Click to enlarge

Reader Donovan Chin (he has the new D300 SLR, lucky fella) spotted this unregistered white Nissan GT-R parked next to the new Jaya One building in Section 14, PJ. Look after the jump for more shots of the car, including a glipse of the quad large diameter tailpipes that looks oh so menacing.

Click here to read the rest of Unregistered Nissan GT-R spotted in Malaysia!

The crowd at the previous Nissan roadshow at 1 Utama

For those who are living in Penang, Edaran Tan Chong Motor will be having a Nissan Road Show at the Gurney Plaza Penang this weekend from the 7th of March 2008 to the 9th of March 2008. Models displayed will be the Nissan Grand Livina in both 1.8 auto and 1.6 auto trim, the Nissan Latio 1.8 Ti Auto and the Nissan Latio Sport 1.6 ST-L Auto.

Related Posts:
Nissan Latio Sedan and Latio Sport hatchback Prices
Nissan Grand Livina 1.6 and 1.8 unveiled in Malaysia
Nissan Latio 1.6 and 1.8 Short Test Drive Experience

Pick-up trucks are becoming increasingly popular as family vehicles these days. They love the utility provided by the storage bed, the frugality and hardiness of the turbodiesel engine, and the off-road capability to tackle our flood-cursed city centrals. Many small families do not mind the cramped interior that you get most of the time. While pick-ups are available with safety features like airbags and ABS, how safe are they in reality?

For the first time ever, Euro NCAP has tested pick-up trucks in the light of the vehicles becoming more and more popular for family usage, and it reveals to us some shocking facts. Three trucks were crashed – the Nissan Navara (second generation Frontier – ours is the first gen), the Isuzu D-MAX and the Mitsubishi L200 (known as the Triton in Malaysia). The following are the results:

Please read the following full crash test reports for full details:
Isuzu D-MAX, Mitsubishi L200, Nissan Navara

The Nissan Navara scored the worst in adult occupant protection – not even one proper star but only a struck-through star. According to the report, the chassis rail collapsed and the accelerator pedal moved as much as 20cm into the footwell – that would definitely cause really serious injury to your legs. The airbags and seatbelt pre-tensioners also activated too late into the crash, which EuroNCAP says poses “a high risk of life threatening injury”.

Nissan has developed new airbag software for the Nissan Navara and all new Nissan Navaras now have the updated software. All existing Nissan Navaras on the road will also receive a free airbag software update at their service centers.

The Mitsubishi L200/Triton scored 4 stars for adult occupant protection, and if you view the full crash report, you will see that the driver’s body and leg protection ranged from weak to marginal, but at least the head received good protection.

Very shocking – please do read the full crash test reports linked above. It’s a pity EuroNCAP did not test the Toyota Hilux. The Toyota Hilux is one of the most popular pick-up trucks used as a family car here in Malaysia, plus a full-bodied 7-seater version of it is sold as the Fortuner.

The new Suzuki Equator was unveiled at the 2008 Chicago Auto Show and as expected thanks to earlier leaked images and an already established relationship between Nissan and Suzuki, it is revealed that the Equator is essentially a badge-engineered Nissan Frontier, and is even built alongside the Frontier at Nissan’s Smyrna plant.

The Suzuki Equator is aimed at Suzuki bike and ATV lovers, who might want a truck with a matching badge for their vehicles. It will come in both Extended Cab and Crew Cab body styles, and power will go to either the two rear wheels or all four wheels via a selectable 4WD system.

There are no diesel powertrain options, instead you have a 2.5 liter DOHC inline-4 putting out 152 horsepower and 232Nm of torque, or a larger 4.0 liter DOHC V6 engine with 261 horsepower and 381Nm of torque. These are both Nissan engines and they are mated to a 5-speed auto for both engines, or a 5-speed manual for the inline-4 and a 6-speed for the V6.

More shots after the jump.

Click here to read the rest of Suzuki Equator based on Nissan Frontier unveiled

The Nissan Z-car will be receiving an update at the 2008 Los Angeles auto show, and the new car that some might consider the second generation modern Z-car will have a wider track than the outgoing model (shown above), and as its 370Z name hints, will be powered by the new VQ37VHR engine found in the Infiniti G37.

The all-aluminium VQ37VHR was on 2007’s Wards 10 Best Engines list, and the smooth high revving V6 puts out 330 horsepower at 7,000rpm and 366Nm of torque at 5,200rpm with the help of nifty technologies like VVEL, one of the first continuously variable valve lift systems in a Japanese car, which eliminates the need of a throttle butterfly, much like BMW’s Valvetronic.

More details are likely to be revealed closer to the Los Angeles date in November.

Related Posts:
Infinity G37 features new VQ37VHR engine

The modern automobile engine has fixed compression ratios, that currently usually hover at about 10.0:1 or 10.5:1 for normally aspirated engines and much lower for turbocharged engines. Cars with direct injection can go higher, but we’re quite limited because compression ratios are fixed. A turbocharged engine running off boost makes less power than a normally aspirated engine of similiar cubic capacity because of the reduced compression ratio. While this has been minimized with very fast spooling turbos these days, it is still not ideal.

The answer is a variable compression ratio engine. Saab showcased a concept version of a variable compression ratio engine back in the year 2000, and it was called the SVC, or Saab Variable Compression. The project never did go anywhere. The SVC was a turbocharged 1.6 liter engine that used a pivoting cylinder head to change compression ratios from 8.0:1 all the way up to a high 14.0:1 according to engine operating status. The pivoting head adjusted the slope of the upper part in relation to the lower part of the engine, thus changing the combustion chamber volume at piston top dead center. Because of this, the top and bottom parts of the engine were separated and each required its own cooling system. Thanks to turbocharging and SVC, the 1.6 liter inline-5 engine produced 225hp and 300Nm of torque using 2.8 bars of boost.

In 2003, Nissan took a different approach to implementing a variable compression ratio system. Nissan showcased its Variable Compression Ratio Piston-Crank System, or VCR for short. It uses a multi-link piston and crank mechanism to vary the compression ratio. Like the Saab SVC, it is also based on a turbocharged engine concept. Compression ratio varies from 8.0:1 to 14.0:1, and the highest compression ratio is used during slow and steady city driving when the car runs mostly off-boost. During hard acceleration when the turbocharger kicks in, the compression ratio is reduced up to 8.0:1. During medium engine loads and low to medium levels of boost, a middle ground such as 11.0:1 is used.

The conventional conrod is replaced by a multilink system that consists of three links An upper link is connected to the piston pin, a lower link revolves freely while connected to a crank pin, and a control link connects the lower link to a control shaft. The control shaft has bearing that has a certain amount of eccentricity to it. When the control shaft rotates, the fulcrum of the control link bearing changes, and this causes the top dead center position of the piston to be either moved up or down vertically. This modifies the combustion chamber volume at piston top dead center, this altering the cylinder’s compression ratio. Basically, the system is designed in such a way that the angle of the control shaft causes the top dead center position to move, so to vary the compression ratio you adjust the angle of the control shaft.

Nissan is also developing a similiar VCR system concept for diesel engines. I’m not sure if a production engine using this technology is in the works or not. VCR has probably been made outdated by direct injection – the Volkswagen Golf GTI’s 2.0 liter TFSI engine is turbocharged yet has a high compression ratio of 10.5:1!

Related Links:
Nissan Variable Compression Ratio Engine
Saab Variable Compression

Click to enlarge

The new Nissan Latio has arrived on our local shores a few months ago, and has redefined the B-class economy sedan segment somewhat. We are very used to the baseline Japanese models having 1.5 liter engines as with the Vios and the City, but the Nissan Latio comes with 1.6 liter and 1.8 liter, the same engine displacements that the Nissan Sentra previously was offered with.

Read more about the new Nissan Latio after the jump.

Click here to read the rest of Nissan Latio 1.6 and 1.8 Short Test Drive Experience