Nissan News

According to a report in Best Car magazine out of Japan, the next generation Nissan GT-R will come with a hybrid powertrain. A 160 hp electric motor and a 440 hp gas engine will team up for a combined 600 hp. That's a number truly deserving of the car's nickname: Godzilla. The current generation...

Sadly, they're not actually orange. Nor do they smell like citrus when they get hot. But by infusing orange oil into natural rubber, a new line of tires from Yokohama cuts four-fifths of the petroleum needed to manufacture a tire. They lower rolling resistance too, meaning better fuel efficiency...

For the first time ever, U.S. automakers are getting ready to sell small cars that go beyond adequate to potentially great. Certainly the styling, specification, and safety equipment of upcoming compacts and subcompacts is a giant step above their predecessors. The latest example is the 2011...

Nissan is considering production of electric vehicles in China.  The company believes that China's fast growing car market will demand EVs and they hope that production within the nation will allow them to produce and sell electric vehicles at a competitive price within the country. Nissan is...

Nissan has released another video in the series that feature the upcoming Nissan Leaf EV.  View the video in its entirety below. This new video reveals a few addition details about the Leaf.  According to the company, the Leaf will feature LED powered headlights and taillights.  This design and...

We previewed the upcoming 2011 Mazda2 subcompact a couple of months ago, but now we have more details, along with photos of its updated styling. The five-door hatchback will be officially unveiled in early December, at the Los Angeles Auto Show. The 2011 Mazda Mazda2 will go on sale in the U.S. and...

Attendees excitedly swarmed around a prototype of the all-electric 2012 Ford Focus EV at an October conference held on Microsoft's Redmond campus, outside Seattle, Washington. But a newer, nice, cooler, and much flashier prototype of the 2012 Focus EV made its debut a few weeks earlier in rather...

Additional sources are now confirming a story we brought you a few days back about the Nissan Leaf.  According to the Detroit Bureau, an automotive industry site, a senior Nissan planner has confirmed stories about offering additional battery sizes later in the Leaf's product cycle. As the Detroit...

Nissan's marketing tour of the Nissan Leaf kicked off in Los Angeles.  The tour, which will bring the Leaf to 22 cities in advance of its release date late next year, is a marketing campaign put on by the company to help determine interest and buying mindset. Nissan expects to sell only 10,000 to...

Why are electric cars more expensive than their gasoline counterparts?  The answer is quite simple, new technology and related equipment drives up the cost of the vehicle.  Well there's a lot more to the answer than that, but Nissan believes that EVs can cost the same as a comparable gasoline...

November is a time to give thanks...for the Specialty Equipment Market Association (SEMA). These are the people and companies who make car enthusiasts drool with automotive add-ons and accessories fit for a classic episode of Pimp My Ride. Each November, when the SEMA show takes place in Las Vegas...

Nissan's CEO Carlos Ghosn announced late last week that his company along with partner Renault are equipped and ready to produce up to 500,000 batteries for EVs annually.  The companies will hold off production numbers until market condition determine the need for such output, but the capability...

A Mystery Global Car As Nissan's Secret Weapon for Growth?

Dates and cities have been announced for the "Zero Emission Tour" that will introduce the 2012 Nissan Leaf hatchback electric car to potential buyers in the U.S. markets where it will first be sold. The car won't be sold nationwide for more than two years. Instead, it will be offered where Nissan...

As U.S. carmakers get serious about building world-class compact cars, one of the most eagerly awaited entries is the 2011 Chevrolet Cruze, which will face off against a totally new 2012 Ford Focus as well as revised models of the Toyota Corolla, Honda Civic, and Nissan Sentra. Now reports say that...

Micra Replacement May Also Replace Cheapest Car in America

Nissan CEO Carols Ghosn has been aggressive in moving his company to market electric vehicles.  The Nissan LEAF has been unveiled, is soon to go on a US tour and will go on sale in selected markets late next year. The 100 mile range pure EV reportedly has a waitlist of 20,000 people. Nissan has...

LEAF makes first U.S. appearance in Los Angeles Nov. 13

Nissan has made a bigger bet on electric cars than any other automaker, with plans to launch its 2012 Leaf electric car globally. But if electric cars are the future of green vehicles, hybrids are today's state of the art. And there, Nissan has lagged. It is developing its own hybrid system, but...

Back in April, startup company Bright Automotive unveiled its design for a plug-in hybrid light delivery truck. Now, we've had a chance to drive the prototype, briefly, just as Bright raised its electric range to 40 miles. Our test vehicle was the only Bright IDEA van prototype built thus far by...