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Why China will soon lead the electric vehicle market

China could be the world's largest electric vehicle market by 2020, thanks to significant government subsidies and the major drawbacks of owning an internal combustion model there. The country's populace registered 75,000 EVs in 2014, and sales figures in 2015 looked even better. In a new video, Renault-Nissan examines the trend and why it happened. Chinese cities heavily encourage buyers to go green through vehicle incentives, but they also make it a hassle to be a polluter. In some places, there's a lottery to limit vehicle registrations and alternating driving bans for even or odd license plate numbers. However, these limits don't apply to EVs, and the country's automakers have benefited from the regulations by introducing small, inexpensive electric models, albeit with sometimes hilarious styling. China's emissions regulations will get even tighter in the coming years. In fact, a Honda exec recently predicted the company wouldn't be able to sell any models there without some form of electric assistance by 2025. Get a better look at the country's electric push to clean up vehicle pollution in Renault-Nissan's video. Related Video:

Nissan reveals NP300 Navara pickup, is it the next Frontier? [w/videos] [UPDATE]

UPDATE: Statement from Nissan added, below.
After plenty of teasing, Nissan has finally revealed the NP300 Navara pickup, previewing America's next Frontier. Now, before we dive into all the info on this new midsize pickup, it's important to note that we don't quite have the official details on the American-spec truck, so there's quite a bit of information here that might not carry through to the North American market.
Depending on the market, the Navara will offer either a four-cylinder diesel or a four-cylinder gas engine, both of which displace 2.5 liters. Nissan claims both engines have been improved, with the oil-burner producing 188 horsepower and 332 pound-feet of torque. There aren't specific figures on the gas engine, although we should expect that it will see a nice bump from the current Frontier's four-cylinder, which offers up 152 hp and 171 lb-ft of torque. It's not clear if a V6 will be available in the US, as there's no mention of it in the Navara's literature.

BMW, Hyundai score big in JD Power's first Tech Experience Index

While automakers are quick to brag about winning a JD Power Initial Quality Study award, the reality, as we've pointed out before, is that these ratings are somewhat misleading, since IQS doesn't necessarily distinguish genuine quality issues. JD Power's new Tech Experience Index aims to solve that problem. The new metric takes the same 90-day approach as IQS but focuses exclusively on technology – collision protection, comfort and convenience, driving assistance, entertainment and connectivity, navigation, and smartphone mirroring. It splits the industry up into just seven segments, based loosely on size, which is why the Chevrolet Camaro is in the same division (mid-size) as Kia Sorento and the Mercedes-Benz GLE-Class is in the same segment as the Hyundai Genesis (mid-size premium). It makes for some screwy bedfellows, to be sure. Still, splitting tech experience away from initial quality should allow customers to make more informed and intelligent decisions when buying new vehicles. In the inaugural study, respondents listed BMW and Hyundai as the big winners, with two segment awards – the 2 Series for small premium and the 4 Series for compact premium, and the Genesis for mid-size premium and Tucson for small segment. The Chevrolet Camaro (midsize), Kia Forte (compact), and Nissan Maxima (large) scored individual wins. Ford also had a surprising hit with the Lincoln MKC, which ranked third in the compact premium segment behind the 4 Series and Lexus IS. This is a coup for the Blue Oval, whose woeful MyFord Touch systems made the brand a victim of the IQS' flaws in the early 2010s. But Ford and other automakers might not want to celebrate just yet. According to JD Power, there's still a lot of room for improvement – navigation systems were the lowest-rated piece of tech in the study. Instead, customers repeatedly saluted collision-avoidance and safety systems, giving the category the best marks of the study and listing blind-spot monitoring and backup cameras as two must-have features – 96 percent of respondents said they wanted those two systems in their next vehicle. But this isn't really a surprise. Implementation of safety systems from brand to brand is similar, and they don't require any input from users, unlike navigation and infotainment systems which are frustratingly deep.