Bigger is better, when it comes to crashes. A basic tenet of physics that for years has sold big, burly pickups as the "safer" alternative to mid-size sedans. But, as the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety discovered, many of today's full-size pickups flunk the side impact crash test, a feat those wimpy sedans manage with ease.
With automakers everywhere struggling to turn a profit, many are returning to the formula of budget-conscious cars to lure used car buyers into dealer showrooms.
Priced at $9,990, the new trim Versa offers a smaller 1.6-liter DOHC four-cylinder engine good for 107 horsepower.
Paired with a standard 5-speed manual transmission or an optional 4-speed automatic transmission, the Versa 1.6 won't win any races, but it will save money at the pump.
Fuel economy is rated at 26 mpg city/34 mpg highway with the 5-speed manual and 26 mpg city/33 mpg highway with the 4-speed automatic.
For a sub-$10K car, the Versa 1.6 is still well-equipped. Power locks & windows, a decent 4-speaker AM/FM CD stereo and ABS brakes are all standard, as are dual front airbags.
Combined with the new-car warranty that no private-party used car can offer, the Versa 1.6 makes a convincing case for itself as a basic commuter car.
The Versa 1.6 will be in dealer showrooms starting Nov. 18.
Special lease offers on Versa, Sentra, Altima, Rogue and Murano
That the Murano crossover and Rogue compact SUV qualify should come as no surprise. Both are relatively thirsty SUVs with combined EPA gas mileage in the mid-20s.
For sedan buyers on a budget, the Versa and Sentra compact sedans and the Altima mid-size sedan all qualify and are worth checking out. The down payment varies depending on the model and trim, but each lease is built upon a $199 monthly payment for 36 months.
The lease program started yesterday and will continue through the end of November.
The tumultuous storyline of the GM - Chrysler merger reads like a script fit for Hollywood. Both need each other to survive. Neither can make it alone. But parties on both sides have a lot to lose.
And with today's news from the Treasury, the White House — and even Renault — the story gets messier by the minute.
Will they? Won't they? Read on..
Yesterday, it seemed a forgone conclusion that General Motors and Chrysler LLC would merge within the next month, despite the consequences for nearly all Chrysler's models.
Now, the US Treasury and the Bush administration are adamant, saying they will not broker a merger deal or heed GM CEO Rick Wagoner's request for more money. Speaking with Reuters, a Bush administration official said that the "Treasury is not negotiating with the automakers, the administration is working to get the $25 billion Congress already authorized to the industry."
Instead, the Bush administration and the Treasury will speed the distribution of $25 billion in federally-backed, low-interest loans, drawn from an aid package approved by Congress last month.
Automotive Newsreports that both GMAC and Chrysler Financial - finance agencies owned jointly by GM and Chrysler's owner, Cerberus Capital Management — would qualify to sell their distressed assets to the Treasury under the $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program.
"An unmanageable disaster" for Rust Belt states While the sale of troubled debt will help GM's overall cashflow, it doesn't help the underlying problem that drove GM to seek Chrysler in the first place: a lack of financing. Without new borrowing or asset sales, GM is in danger of running dangerously low on cash in 2009, analysts have said.
Hoping to draw attention to the dire need for capital, the governors of Michigan, New York, Ohio, Kentucky, Delaware and South Dakota wrote the Bush administration in a plea for further assistance. Facing pressure from a surge of unemployment claims and a decline in state tax revenue, the "economic crisis" facing automakers "threatens to create an unmanageable disaster at the state level," the letter said.
Michigan's congressional delegation — lead by Energy and Commerce Committee chair John Dingell — has also lobbied the Bush administration to free up funds for the Big Three.
Ford joins the bailout fray, seeking "degree of parity" And just when this couldn't get more complicated, here comes Ford. Reuters reports that FoMoCo has been angling for their own piece of the financial aid pie. If the government provides a direct injection of capital into either GM or Chrysler, Ford want their fair share as well.
Speaking with reporters, Mark Fields, Ford's president of the Americas said the company wants to "make sure that whatever happens, there is a degree of parity."
But for now, any aid — or merger negotiations — will be delayed until after Election Day.
So what happens now? With the GM-Chrysler talks stalled, Renault pops back into the picture. As NMM reported two weeks ago, French automaker Renault has expressed interest in buying Chrysler's Jeep division outright from Cerberus.
Recently, Renault has backed away from the table, playing down rumors of a three-way partnership between Chrysler, Renault and it's Japanese partner Nissan Motor Corporation.
Nonetheless, the lack of progress with General Motors opens the door to new talks between Cerberus and Renault. Sources close to the early discussion said that Cerberus has considered a deal with Renault and Nissan as a favorable alternative to a full buyout of Chrysler by GM.
The sources declined to be named as they were not authorized to discuss the private talks. General Motors and Cerberus both declined to comment.
Not to oversell the situation, but we may very well be witnessing the end times for Chrysler as an automaker.
One in four salaried workers at Chrysler will be out of a job by year's end, according to a statement released by Chrysler this morning.
The statement did not identify how many jobs the automaker will eliminate but spokesman Michael Palese said the cuts will total 25 percent of the company's salaried workforce.
According its own figures, Chrysler employs nearly 17,300 salaried workers. So today's cuts may total more than 4,300 jobs. The first round of job cuts will come with voluntary retirement and employee buyout offers, according to the statement. Even still, layoffs are expected to come before the end of the year.
Discretionary spending and operating overhead will also be cut to the bone as Chrysler's owner, Cerberus Capital Management negotiates for a potential sale to General Motors. As reported earlier, Cerberus is also courting Renault for a potential sale of the Jeep division.
A hailstorm of pink slips Today's news comes a month after Chrysler cut 1,000 salaried jobs and a day after the announcement that it would close its plant in Newark, Del., and cut a full shift from the Toledo, Ohio Jeep plant, trimming 1,825 more jobs in the process.
Since February 2007, Chrysler has eliminated 35,000 jobs. GM is also rumored to announce another round of salaried job cuts by the end of the year.
Speaking with Bloomberg, Dennis Virag, president of Michigan-based Automotive Consulting Group said Chrysler and General Motors have to do all they can to stem the outflow of cash from the organization.
Chrysler CEO Bob Nardelli released a statement attributing the latest job cuts to the fastest contraction ever in auto industry sales. "These are truly unimaginable times for our industry," said Nardelli in the statement. "We continue to be in the most difficult economic period most of us can remember."
Doubts emerge over Renault deal Meanwhile, Reuters has reported that Renault is downplaying rumors of a potential partnership between Chrysler, Renault and its Japanese partner Nissan. Renault had recently expressed interest in purchasing Chrysler's Jeep division; the reaction by Renault may be a sign that the French automaker is no longer interested in the Jeep lineup.
Speaking with Reuters, UBS analyst Tatsuo Yoshida said Nissan and Renault have little incentive to spend the human and fiscal resources needed to aid the ailing American automaker.
Within the world of concept car design, inspiration can come from almost anywhere.
With its cobalt hues and fluid form, theRenault Ondelios has a distinct Blade Runner vibe. The Mini Crossman takes the cheery countenance of the Mini Cooper and injects a hearty dose WWE-strength 'roid rage.
But rarely has one design theme been carried to its natural conclusion in one fell swoop.
Meet the Nissan Nuvu — an organic design concept built for the future of urban driving.
Unveiled among many other pie-in-the-sky concepts at the Paris Motor Show this week, the Nuvu is Nissan's take on what the metropolitan electric vehicle will become by the end of this century.
Diminutive dimensions, maximum mobility In the early stages of the Nuvu project, Nissan designers envisioned a far more crowded world. With every major city filled to bursting point, space would become a expensive commodity -- creating pressure on everyone to scale down their lives to a city-friendly scale.
"The most important aspect of Nuvu is the interior design which provides comfort and space in an intelligent package designed to make the best use of our crowded roads and limited parking," said Francois Bancon, general manager of Nissan's Exploratory and Advance Planning Department.
Inside the Nuvu, broad swaths of glass lend the feeling of open space to an otherwise small car. Within its nine-foot, ten-inch length, the Nuvu can seat the driver and two passengers, with the second riding in a fold-out jumpseat beside and behind the front row seat.
The decision to build a 2+1 concept stemmed from research conducted by Bancon and his designers. "We found that for 90 percent of the time, the driver was alone. For five percent of the time there was one passenger and for four percent of the time there were two passengers. You can do the math to find out how often four or more people were in the car." said Bancon.
Responding to this research, the Nuvu's seating configuration offers the flexibility to ferry both people and their things for a typical supermarket or shopping trip, without making the sacrifices brought about by strict two-seaters (I'm looking at you, Smart forTwo).
A tranquil refuge from the urban world If the present is any indication, our intensely urban future will likely be blighted by the cold cubic subdivisions of concrete and steel as towering buildings become commonplace.
Bancon and his design team sought to create a refuge from such a world. Every surface is bathed in light radiating through the Nuvu's glass roof. Designers chose contrasting blue-green and orange hues creating a haven of green tranquility in stark contrast to the urban jungle.
To reinforce this message, Nuvu incorporates a witty representation of its green credentials: across its all-glass roof are a dozen or so small solar panels. Shaped like leaves on a branch, the power they generate is fed to the drivetrain battery using a tree trunk power conduit within the car.
Under the hood, Spongebob meets kilowatts The ecological design theme continues outside. Nearly every surface of the Nuvu has an organic quality to it. Aside from the broad sharp outline of the side windows, the Nuvu is defined by sweeping line and bulging surfaces. Painted in a matte orange hue, the car begs comparison to goldfish, guppies and countless other aquatic youngsters.
Distilled to its mechanical essence, the Nuvu is designed for ease of operation and near zero maintenance.
Driver controls are as simple as possible. All the major functions — steering, braking, transmission and throttle — are processed digitally by-wire, while the steering is controlled by an aircraft-style steering yoke. With just one turn from lock to lock, the steering is very direct for agility and maneuverability; the Nuvu's turning radius is barely more than 12 feet.
With a six-foot two-inch wide track and the use of 165/55R16 tires mounted on lightweight wheels, ride comfort, stability and agility are all of the highest order.
Two screens on the dashboard display the view behind the car; there are no door mirrors to disturb airflow. These screens double as monitors for the Nuvu's Around View Camera - a technology already in use on the Infiniti EX crossover — which give a birds eye view of the car when maneuvering at slow speeds.
The Nuvu is powered by a rear-mounted electric motor that offers an estimated top speed of 75 mph and a range of about 78 miles. The motor draws energy stored in laminated lithium-ion batteries that can recharge passively via the integrated solar panel roof. When plugged in, the Nuvu's batteries require 10 to 20 minutes for a quick 25 percent recharge and three to four hours to completely a full charge from a 220V home outlet.
After more than a month spent previewing the Paris Motor Show, it's time for a change of pace.
There will be no pie-in-the-sky concepts tonight. No highfalutin discussion of design aesthetics on a car that will do little more than sit on a turntable.
Nor will there be a pity party tonight about the looming fiscal Armageddon while the stock market convulses like a heroin addict.
Tonight it's all about red raw horsepower — six hundred and two of them to be precise. They all come wrapped in the sinister form of the Amuse R1 Titan Nissan GT-R, which has been thoroughly tuned to demolish lap times with savage ferocity.
Amuse holds a narrow lead over rival tuning firm HKS in the volume of parts available for the R35 GTR. The company currently offers a ECU reflash, which eliminates the stock speed limiter, fully adjustable coilover dampers, a full titanium exhaust with high flow catalytic converter and dry carbon fiber spoilers front and rear.
The combined weight savings coupled with the massive increase in horsepower were sufficient to lap Tsukuba in 1:01.32. Godzilla indeed.
After spending the week extolling virtuous fuel misers and squashing the rumor of a high-po Veyron GT, we're wrapping things up with a demonstration of real, verifiable red-raw horsepower courtesy of HKS, HyperZSpeed video magazine and Japanese tuning garage Top Racing.
The R35 GT-R — Nissan's newest generation of their venerable Skyline sports coupe — has only been on the market in the US for a few months. Aftermarket tuning powerhouses have only just begun to dig into the untapped potential of the GT-R's 3.8-liter twin-turbocharged V6.
HKS is the first to sell a full tuning program for the new GT-R, albeit only in Japan for the balance of the year.
The HKS GT570 kit includes new wastegate actuators for the stock turbos and an electronic boost controller, along with aluminum intercooler piping and silicon hose couplers to withstand the increased boost pressure. On the exhaust side, a set of straight pipes which replace the stock catalytic converters provide both maximum efficiency and a sinfully decadent exhaust note.
In the end, 562 wheel horsepower and 540 pound-feet of torque are extracted, albeit at expense of the stock GT-R's emissions legality. Crank up the speakers and enjoy.
With 480 horsepower courtesy of a 3.8 liter twin turbocharged V-6 and an all-wheel-drive system so advanced it's nearly self-aware, the Nissan GT-R a devilishly tempting prospect.
For our Friday video clip , we join Jay Leno & John Weiner as they go under the hood and hit the road with Nissan's new world-beater.
Nearly a year and a half after the introduction of the Altima Hybrid, Nissan unveiled two new prototypes that indicate the future of the company's low and zero-emission vehicles.
A version of the Infiniti G37 sedan was presented, showcasing a parallel gasoline-electric hybrid drivetrain.
In addition to the award-winning VQ-series 3.7 liter V-6, the prototype hybrid uses a pair of electric motors. Both motors are equipped with computer controlled clutches. By combining or alternating power from one or both sources, the hybrid Infiniti can run solely on electric power at low speeds and merge both gasoline and electric power for improved acceleration.
Of importance to enthusiast drivers, the Nissan drivetrain merges electric and gasoline power before it is routed through the transmission. Unlike Toyota's Hybrid Synergy Drive which relies on a planetary gearbox to divy up the work between the electric and gas motors, Nissan's system can be equipped with either an conventional automatic or manual gearbox.
When the Infiniti hybrid will hit the streets is still anyone's guess, but today's announcement proves indisputably that Nissan will continue to invest in hybrid automobiles.
If you're considering a new Sentra or Murano, you'll need to fork over more cash for it, starting today.
In response to rising material and shipping costs, Nissan Motor Corporation announced that the 2008 Sentra's MSRP will increase by $100. The base MSRP for the 2009 Murano will increase by $540.
W
i
th automakers everywhere struggling to turn a profit, many are returning to the formula of budget-conscious cars to lure used car buyers into dealer showrooms. 
The tumultuous storyline of the GM - Chrysler merger reads like a script fit for Hollywood. Both need each other to survive.
N
o
t to oversell the situation, but we may very well be witnessing the end times for Chrysler as an automaker.
Within the world of concept car design, inspiration can come from almost anywhere.
Inside the Nuvu, broad swaths of glass lend the feeling of open space to an otherwise small car. Within its nine-foot, ten-inch length, the Nuvu can seat the driver and two passengers, with the second riding in a fold-out jumpseat beside and behind the front row seat.
Under the hood, Spongebob meets kilowatts
The Nuvu is powered by a rear-mounted electric motor that offers an estimated top speed of 75 mph and a range of about 78 miles. The motor draws energy stored in laminated lithium-ion batteries that can recharge passively via the integrated solar panel roof. When plugged in, the Nuvu's batteries require 10 to 20 minutes for a quick 25 percent recharge and three to four hours to completely a full charge from a 220V home outlet.
After more than a month spent previewing the Paris Motor Show, it's time for a change of pace.
After spending the week extolling virtuous fuel misers and squashing the rumor of a high-po Veyron GT, we're wrapping things up with a demonstration of real, verifiable red-raw horsepower courtesy of HKS, HyperZSpeed video magazine and Japanese tuning garage Top Racing.
Nearly a year and a half after the introduction of the Altima Hybrid, Nissan unveiled two new prototypes that indicate the future of the company's low and zero-emission vehicles.
