Nissan

By William Maley Staff Writer - CheersandGears.com May 25, 2013 Nissan was riding high when the announcement came that their NV Taxi would become New York City's Taxi of Tomorrow last year. Since then, Nissan has been under a barrage of attacks. The latest setback comes from New York Supreme Court Justice Peter Moulton who ruled one part of Nissan's and New York's Taxi & Limousine Commission agreement is "null, void and unenforceable". That part is from the Taxi of Tomorrow requirements w

By William Maley Staff Writer - CheersandGears.com May 13, 2013 Nissan's CEO has a small request for its U.S. arm: Double sales by 2017. "China was not our biggest, I would say, disappointment. It was mainly the United States. We were expecting a strong year in the United States. It didn't happen," Ghosn told reporters after announcing Nissan's 2012 fiscal results. In 2012, Nissan's sales in the U.S. rose to 1.1 million - up five percent (and a record year as well). However Nissan lost 0.5

By William Maley Staff Writer - CheersandGears.com April 15, 2013 Well this is a bit of surprise. Last Friday, Nissan announced that Ram Trucks CEO Fred Diaz will become its new divisional vice president for sales and marketing. Diaz’s role at Nissan will have him oversee all sales and marketing for the U.S. market, which includes Nissan’s Commerical and Fleet division. Since 2009, Diaz was the head of the Chrysler Group’s Ram division (established in 2009 as well). During Diaz’s tenure, Ram

By William Maley Staff Writer - CheersandGears.com February 26, 2013 Nissan is in the midst of expanding its NISMO brand. At the Chicago Auto Show, Nissan unveiled the new Juke NISMO and refreshed 370Z NISMO. Today at in Yokohama, Japan. CEO Carlos Ghosn made three key announcements for the future of NISMO. The first was that NISMO was moving to a new facility that offers more engineering and development resources. NISMO's 180 employees will have access to a workshop, engine shop, fabricati

By William Maley Staff Writer - CheersandGears.com February 13, 2013 While Nismo has been known to build hotted-up versions of the 350Z and 370Z, they weren't really known in the U.S. With the introduction of the refreshed 2014 370Z Nismo and the new 2013 Juke Nismo, Nissan is beginning to change that. Nissan is planning to expand the Nismo brand in the U.S. by introducing new models within the next few years.There will also be Nismo models with the RS designation that will have more power a

By William Maley Staff Writer - CheersandGears.com January 28, 2013 The Nissan Titan hasn't really changed since its introduction back in 2003. Sticking with the same 5.6L V8 engine and the choice of either a extended or crew cab means the Titan hasn't set the sales charts on fire. Sales last year for Titan totaled 21,576, a far cry from the nearly 87,000 sales in 2005, its best year. But with the 2015 Titan, Nissan is hoping the new model will become a contender. Edmunds had the chance to s

By William Maley Staff Writer - CheersandGears.com January 17, 2013 Automobile magazine had a chance to talk with Nissan's executive vice president, Andy Palmer at the Detroit Auto Show. Palmer gave some details about what is coming down the pipe within the next few years. Starting with the Nissan Resonance concept, Palmer says the concept is "close" to what the next-generation Murano will look like. “It’s a true expression of what we believe the next, third-generation Murano should look li

William Maley Staff Writer - CheersandGears.com December 28, 2012 After a number of complaints from owners saying that their Nissan Leafs were losing charge capacity, Nissan has announced a new warranty for the Leaf's battery. “Nissan will protect against capacity loss in LEAF batteries that fall below nine bars, of the available 12 bars displayed on the vehicle’s battery capacity gauge, for the first five years or 60,000 miles in the United States, whichever comes first,” said Nissan execut

William Maley Staff Writer - CheersandGears.com October 8, 2012 Nissan set a very ambitious goal of selling 20,000 Leafs this year. At the end of September, Nissan only sold 5,212 Leafs, way off the mark. "We don't plan on the moment of changing the projection. We're a little disappointed. … The uptake isn't as strong as we first hoped," said Nissan's executive vice president of product planning, Andy Palmer. Palmer puts blame poor marketing around the world and a lack of production in the

William Maley Staff Writer - CheersandGears.com August 31, 2012 Around the same time the New York Auto Show was going on, Nissan released a commercial which had five new vehicles under white sheets.That commerical revealed the new Altima and said five new vehicles would be coming in next year or so. The second vehicle was the new Pathfinder which was revealed earlier this month. Now, Nissan has revealed a third model, the new Sentra. The 2013 Sentra follows in the footsteps of the larger Alt

William Maley Staff Writer - CheersandGears.com August 3, 2012 Nissan has finally revealed the new Pathfinder, which will be arriving at Nissan dealers later in the fall. The new Pathfinder says goodbye to its truck-based platform and uses a unibody platform. The new platform, shared with the Infiniti JX crossover, helps the new Pathfinder drop 500 lbs and deliver a better ride. Some will cry and moan at the loss of the go anywhere attitude of the previous Pathfinder, but Nissan is ok with t

William Maley Staff Writer - CheersandGears.com June 30, 2012 From the "Wait, What?!" department comes a report from Inside Line that says the next generation GT-R hasn't been approved. A source reveals that Nissan CEO Carlos Ghosn hasn't given the green light to begin work on the next GT-R. More worryingly, the source says that Ghosn might not give it go ahead at all. A possible reason as to why Ghosn might not give the green light is in this tidbit from the report, "Ghosn approved the or

William Maley Staff Writer - CheersandGears.com July 20, 2012 Automakers are taking notice of the red hot sales of the Scion FR-S and Subaru BRZ. And if rumors play true, Nissan could be working on a competitor. According to Motor Trend, Nissan is hard at work on a sports coupe to compete with the FR-S and BRZ. However, the coupe will not use a RWD platform. Instead the coupe will utilize a FWD platform with an AWD variant, most likely from the Juke. Also coming from the Juke will be the 1.6

William Maley Staff Writer - CheersandGears.com July 12, 2012 Nissan is reportedly hard at work on the next generation Z sports car. In a interview with Inside Line, Nissan's design boss Shiro Nakamura said the next Z will be both smaller and lighter than the current 370Z. Also, Nakamura said the next Z will be aimed at a wider audience. To help with the weight loss of the next Z, Nissan could be looking at dropping the current 3.7L V6 and going towards a four-cylinder turbo. Also, with th

William Maley Editor/Reporter - CheersandGears.com June 4, 2012 Nissan made big news earlier this year with promise of five new models over the course of this and next year. So far, we've seen the new Altima and Pathfinder in concept form. Now, some spy shots of the new Sentra have been released. Decorated in zebra camouflage, the next Sentra's shape mimics the new Altima from front to back. Under the hood, Nissan could be placing a 1.8L DI four-cylinder under the hood, which will come with

William Maley Editor/Reporter - CheersandGears.com April 23, 2012 Starting with the new 2013 Altima, Nissan will be launching five all-new products in the U.S. over the next 15 months. Product #3 is the all new Sentra which will be released later this year. Nissan released a teaser picture and video of the new Sentra today. What we can see on the picture and video is the new Sentra will share a lot in common with the new Altima. The front will get Nissan's new grill seen on the Altima and Ve

William Maley Editor/Reporter - CheersandGears.com April 15, 2012 And the award for the oldest truck lineup goes to Nissan. Their current lineup, the mid-size Frontier and full-size Titan stand at six and seven years respectively. Car & Driver says their replacements are going to be awhile. Starting with Titan, a source tells Car & Driver we’re still “a couple of years” away from seeing the finished product. This corroborates our story last November saying the Titan could be released

G. Noble Editor/Reporter - CheersandGears.com April 10th, 2012 Recently, Nissan design boss Shiro Nakamura talked with Australian car magazine Drive and dropped some rather unexpected and very interesting bits of news. Nakamura revealed that Nissan was considering downsizing its sports cars, and that may include a revival of a sub-370Z model. He also revealed that, for the first time in its history, the next Nissan Z may not have a higher displacement motor than the outgoing one. “I much pre

William Maley Editor/Reporter - CheersandGears.com March 20, 2012 Earlier this month, The Nikkei reported that Nissan would bring back the Datsun brand. The brand would be made up of entry-level and low-cost vehicles for the emerging markets. At the time, Nissan declined to comment on The Nikkei's report. Now, Nissan is confirming the return of Datsun. Nissan CEO Carlos Ghosn told the media yesterday that Datsun would be returning as Nissan's third brand. Datsun vehicles will offer buyers i

G. Noble Editor/Reporter CheersandGears.com March 2, 2012 According to Nikkei, one of Japan’s leading news sources, Nissan could be setting the stage for a revival of the Datsun brand in 2014. The Datsun brand has been in mothballs for about 26 years (since 1986) when Nissan phased the name out in the American market in favor of its own. However, that doesn’t mean you should expect to see Datsun badges on the next Z car, or any other future Nissan for that matter. Nikkei’s report claims that

William Maley Editor/Reporter - CheersandGears.com March 1, 2012 Nissan is taking a page out of the Volkswagen playbook with their announcement of a new modular platform. Called the Common Module Family (CMF) architecture, Nissan says the platform will allow the company to share up to 80 percent of parts between all new Nissan vehicles. CMF is comprised of four distinct components to each vehicle: the engine compartment, front chassis/sub frame, the cabin, and the rear chassis. Each has its

William Maley Editor/Reporter - CheersandGears.com February 28, 2012 Every few months or so, an automaker inadvertently reveals their new vehicle before an auto show. Case in point is Nissan which showed their new 2013 Altima in a new video. The video, celebrating 30 years of production at Nissan Technical Center, shows for a brief moment a very pre-production 2013 Altima undergoing some tests. We can see the new headlights, swoopy bodywork and a new, sharper grille. Nissan has since then pu

William Maley Editor/Reporter - CheersandGears.com January 17, 2012 Nissan showed off a concept version of the new Pathfinder at the 2012 North American International Auto Show last week, but didn't disclose many details. But, Motor Trend has found out some information about what will powering it. A source at Nissan tells Motor Trend that the production version of the new Pathfinder will use Nissan's 3.5L V6. This makes sense since the Pathfinder is Nissan’s version of the new Infiniti JX35,

William Maley Editor/Reporter - CheersandGears.com January 14, 2012 To those who are worried about Nissan abandoning the SUV market with Pathfinder moving to a crossover, worry no more. Car & Driver has learned that Nissan isn't going to a unibody frame for the Xterra. Enginners familiar with the development of the Xterra told the magazine the Xterra will continue to share its DNA with the Frontier pickup. This means people who want something durable when going off the beaten path, Nissa

William Maley Editor/Reporter - CheersandGears.com January 5, 2012 If there was one automaker who is happy to see Ford leaving the compact truck market, it would be Nissan. "We're really the beneficiary of Ford pulling out of the segment. We felt it was an opportunity to capture market share and we went after it last year, and we went after it without increasing incentives," said Nissan U.S.' sales boss Al Castignetti. Last summer, Nissan pushed sales of the Frontier compact truck. The move

It was only a few short weeks ago Nissan released their first teaser of the Pathfinder concept, set to debut at the ever approaching Detroit Auto Show. Now Nissan has decided the time is right to release two more teasers, each revealing the and of the vehicle.Each video only lasts a few seconds each, but they reveal everything you need to see if you were wondering what the front and rear of last month's shadowy profile shot would look like. It's also worth noting that the three-section gri

As we've seen in prior months, GM, Ford, and Chrysler all love to tease us with shadowy, vague photos of their upcoming wares. Now, Nissan is joining in on the fun by releasing a teaser of their upcoming Pathfinder concept, set to debut at the Detroit Auto Show next month. From what the teaser images show, the Pathfinder's sheetmetal moves from the rugged, boxy formula of the current model to a more flowing, aerodynamic design. There have been rumors that Nissan could be moving the upcoming Pat

Back in October, we reported that Nissan was working on a new hybrid system that would use a supercharged motor to be used in the next Altima. Today, Nissan is showed off their new supercharged hybrid powertrain. The system uses a 2.5L supercharged four-cylinder engine and a compact lithium-ion battery pack. Nissan engineers told Autoblog the hybrid powertrain can match the output of Nissan’s current 3.6L V6 (260 HP and 250 lb-ft of torque) while returning a 10% increase in fuel economy over t

Nissan rolled out another Juke concept in time for the Tokyo Motor Show. Though not as crazy as the Juke GT-R, the Juke Nismo does come with some goodies. Nissan's performance division has added a stiffer suspension, new 19-inch alloy wheels, tuned the 1.6L DI turbocharged four-cylinder, new body parts, new seats, and a pearl white exterior paint job with red highlights. But the Juke Nismo concept also signals a change at Nismo. Nissan announced today that it will expand its lineup of Nismo mod

Development of the next generation Nissan Titan has been rough. Back in 2008, Nissan wanted to partner with Chrysler on developing the next Titan. That would have meant the next Titan and Ram would share many parts. However, when Chrysler went into bankruptcy in 2009, the plan was shelved and left Nissan to fend for itself. Since then, Nissan has been hard at work on the next Titan, due out next year. But now, Nissan is saying it will be another year before we see it. "We will come out a littl

Nissan is slowly expanding their NV series of commercial van with the brand announcing a passenger van version this week. Now, Autoblog is reporting that another NV van could be in the wings. Nissan's Vice President of Commercial and Fleet Vehicles, Joe Castelli told Autoblog that Nissan is readying a retail version the NV200 van to compete with the Ford Transit Connect. This would help build momentum for the new NV200 Taxi for New York. The NV200 is currently on sale is already sold in other

Nissan is showing no signs of letting up in the full size van market. Currently, the Japanese automaker offers three different versions of their NV Cargo vans, the NV1500, NV2500HD, and NV3500HD. Now, Nissan will be offering a NV Van for passengers. The Nissan NV3500HD Passenger Van was announced today. The van which is based on the NV3500HD can seat twelve people via four rows of seats. Those four rows can also allow the seating arrangement to be configured in 324 ways. Powering the Nissan NV