Archive for Nissan

Nissan and Suzuki will be expanding their collaboration with sharing vehicle platforms and rebadging. Currently Suzuki supplies some small cars for Nissan to rebadge. An example would be the Suzuki MR Wagon, which Nissan rebadged as the Nissan Moco. These small cars are usually sold in the Japanese market only.

The agreement cites the possibility of new products for the Japanese market. If feasibility studies go well, Nissan will be supplying a minivan to Suzuki to rebadge, and Suzuki will supply another mini-car like the Suzuki MR Wagon to Nissan to rebadge. This is expected to begin at the end of 2006.

From 2008 onwards, Nissan might supply a compact pick-up truck to Suzuki to rebadge for the North American market. This might be a pick-up like the Nissan Frontier, as it’s considered small by American standards of huge 4 liter engined monster pick-ups. Nissan and Suzuki will also begin manufacturing collaboration by sharing facilities. The first facility to do this will be Suzuki’s Indian plant.

This is an example of a successful collaboration between car manufacturers.

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Inspired by the popularity of the BMW Short Films, Nissan tried to do something similiar with the Nissan 350Z. It follows the style of underground racing flicks like Getaway in Stockholm, with a camera mounted on the top of the car recording a high-speed spirited drive through a city. Video after the jump.

Click here to read the rest of Nissan 350Z The Run Video

There have been sightings of a small Nissan SUV being tested on the road. It is said that the new mini Murano is based on the Nissan Qashqai concept shown 2 years ago at the 2004 Geneva Motor Show.

The above artist’s impression image by Hans G. Lehmann photo syndication shows that the new small-sized SUV has abandoned the old Qashqai’s X-Trail-like front grille and has adopted the new Renault-Nissan look. It looks like a taller Nissan Versa. Note that this is an artist’s impression only, but inspired by Nissan’s current design trends.

The Nissan Qashqai is expected to debut in 2007 and will come with 2.0 liter petrol and turbodiesel engines. There could also be a top of the range six-banger version. Naturally, it will have all-wheel drive. This small SUV will be in direct competition with the Toyota RAV4, the Mercedes Benz MLK and the BMW X3.

Hybrid sales could be seeing a sales slowdown and Carlos Ghosn was one of the very few people who had enough foresight to see this during the days of the hybrid hype where everyone was jumping onto the bandwagon.

Carlos Ghosn, the CEO of Nissan and Renault said it was far too early to invest in hybrid technology, because costs outweighed the benefits for both consumers and manufacturers. The fuel savings of a hybrid vehicle did not justify the fuel savings incurred.

In fact, on highways a hybrid car like the Toyota Prius might actually use more fuel than a normal car. This is because on highway speeds, the Toyota Prius runs on full gasoline as the ECU detects highway long journeys might drain the battery too fast as the time for journeys are usually long and there is very little opportunity for regenerative braking. Since the Toyota Prius gasoline engine is quite tiny relatively, it actually has to work harder and use more fuel compared to a conventional powered vehicle with a larger more potent engine.

“At least admit I was the only guy saying, Watch out, the consumer decides, don’t be excited about it. I have some kind of satisfaction of being a little bit right on this one.” said Carlos Ghosn at the New York Auto Show. He says diesel or ethanol vehicle holds more promise for now, but he is not abandoning the idea of hybrids completely. He just thinks it’s not time yet. Nissan is still on track to release a hybrid version of the Nissan Altima this year.

J.D. Power and Associates predicts hybrids will make up 1.5 percent of automobile sales in 2006 and will grow to nearly 5 percent by 2013.

Nissan Motor’s CEO Carlos Ghosn has announced that the next generation Skyline R35 will be marketed in the US market as a Nissan. It will be called the Nissan GT-R. The production version of this hot new continuation of the Skyline legacy will make it’s debut at the 2007 Tokyo Motor Show, with the Japanese market launch scheduled for Fall 2007. The Nissan GT-R will go on sale in the US in Spring 2008.

To me, this is a good move as it allows Nissan to focus on the Nissan GT-R as a proper sports car, not a luxury sports car as it would have been if it was marketed under the Infiniti badge. Previously, it was said that the new car would be marketed under the Infiniti badge instead of a Nissan badge. Toyota is going the other way with it’s replacement for the Toyota Supra in it’s model line-up. It will be marketed under the Lexus badge as the Lexus LF-H. Where’s Honda with it’s NSX replacement?

Related Posts:
Nissan Skyline GT-R Proto (alot more photos)
2008/2009 Infiniti GT-R
Nissan GT-R Proto Art

Edaran Tan Chong Motor announced price cuts of between 3% to 15% for Nissan cars with immediate effect under the new National Automotive Policy tax rates. The Nissan Sentra will be cheaper by 5%, while the premium Nissan Cefiro will be cheaper by 12-15%. Suprisingly the Nissan X-trail SUV also enjoyed a small price reduction of about 5%, when the whole industry was facing either static or rising prices in that model range. Nissan’s Serena MPV and the Nissan Vanette window van’s prices are to be about 9%-10% higher though, but not immediately. It’s effective date will be announced later.

Edaran Tan Chong Motor executive director Dr Ang Bon Beng expressed some concerns on the National Automotive Policy, especially on the usage of local parts in CKD assembled products and the Industrial Adjustment Fund which was set up. In Tan Chong’s case there is nothing much to claim from the fund except for the use of local parts. However this is a little tricky as Nissan has to consent, and even if they do, sometimes local manufacturers do not have the economies of scale to offer competitive prices for the parts. This might end up with local manufacturing of parts ending up costing more than importing them from overseas suppliers.

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Nissan is developing a safety feature for it’s cars to help avoid colliding with the vehicle in front in the case of a possible sudden brake situation.

In Nissan’s accelerator pedal safety system, a combination of radar sensors connected to a computer system monitors the car’s speed and the distance to the vehicle in front. If the vehicle in front suddenly slows down (like a jam brake situation) or there is any other possibility of a rear-end collision as calculated by the computer system, the gas pedal will automatically rise against the driver’s foot as a signal to step on the brake.

Once the driver lifts his foot off the accelerator pedal, the system does not wait for him to start braking, it automatically kicks in. Of course, the driver’s foot would go ahead and press the brakes anyway.

This makes me think, doesn’t this system require the use of brake-by-wire? Brake-by-wire’s benefits versus safety hazard is still being debated in the industry, though most modern brake-by-wire systems like Mercedes Benz’s Sensotronic Braking Control comes with a manual safety net.

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Edaran Tan Chong Motor Sdn Bhd’s plans for 2006 includes introducing new models - the Nissan Teana luxury sedan and the Nissan Murano luxury crossover SUV. This is part of Edaran Tan Chong Motors’ strategy to increase Nissan’s 5% market share this year, which will be very challenging indeed. Will the Nissan Teana be placed in the market segment above the current Nissan Cefiro or replace it? I’m not sure.

Dealership networks will also be expanded. Current Edaran Tan Chong has 66 branches and 60 dealers. An extra 18 branches and 13 dealers will be added nationwide.

What about the Nissan Latio? It’s being sold in Singapore and I think it would be a good competitors to the budget Japanese family sedan market conquered by the Toyota VIOS and Honda City currently.

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While our Nissan Sentra has just been facelifted here, Nissan has unveiled the new 2007 Nissan Sentra at the North American International Auto Show in Detroit. Our Nissan Sentra and the USDM Nissan Sentra has always looked very different, so I’m not sure if Nissan intends this to be the Sentra across the world or have separate USDM and JDM Nissan Sentras.

Click here to read the rest of 2007 Nissan Sentra USDM

UPDATE: The Nissan Sylphy has been launched in Malaysia! Two model variants are available, both with 2.0L engines. Click to read more and find out details and pricing.

Nissan has launched it’s Nissan Bluebird Sylphy mid-sized luxury sedan in Japan, targetted at today’s executive woman, focusing on hospitality and care in mind.

Click here to read the rest of 2006 Nissan Bluebird Sylphy