2011 Nissan Altima 2.5 S on 2040-cars

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NYC Taxi of Tomorrow ruled legal by appeals court

The streets of New York City might be filling up with a lot more Nissans in the next few years. A New York appeals court ruled that the city's mandate to replace old taxis with a fleet entirely made up of the Nissan NV200 Taxi of Tomorrow was legal. The decision overturned a previous ruling that decided The Big Apple couldn't force cabbies to all purchase the same vehicle.
Justice David B. Saxe wrote the court's opinion saying the Taxi of Tomorrow is a "legally appropriate response to the agency's statutory obligation to produce a 21st-century taxicab consistent with the broad interests and perspectives that the agency is charged with protecting," according to Bloomberg. The Greater New York Taxi Association, the plaintiff in the case, could still possibly attempt a second appeal.
Nissan originally won the 10-year contract estimated to be worth about $1 billion in 2011, beating out Ford and a Turkish company. Under the Taxi of Tomorrow plan, all New York cabbies would have to switch to the NV200 within three of five years of the van going into service, and it would replace the 16 vehicles previously authorized as taxis. In 2013, the mandate received multiple challenges though, including an attempted ban by cab drivers because the replacement wasn't a hybrid. In a separate case, state Supreme Court judge Schlomo Hagler decided that there was nothing in the city charter that forced a taxi driver to choose a specific vehicle. This was the case that was just overturned. In the meantime, the automaker has been selling the NV200 to New York cabbies at prices around $29,700.

Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi pool $200 million to invest in tech startups

PARIS — The Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi alliance is setting up a $200 million mobility tech fund, three sources said, in the latest move by major carmakers to adapt to rapid industry change by investing in startups through their own venture capital arms. The fund, due to be unveiled by Chief Executive Carlos Ghosn at the CES tech industry show in Las Vegas next Tuesday, will be 40 percent financed by Renault, 40 percent by Nissan and 20 percent by Mitsubishi. "It will allow us to move faster on acquisitions ahead of our competition," one of the alliance sources told Reuters. Frederique Le Greves, a spokeswoman for the Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi alliance, declined to comment. The traditional auto industry model based on individual ownership is threatened by pay-per-use services such as Uber, as well as ride- and car-sharing platforms, a challenge heightened by parallel shifts towards electrified and self-driving cars. Wary carmakers are struggling to embrace changes and technologies that some of their executives are only beginning to grasp. To accelerate the process, many are investing directly in the new services — and gaining access to intellectual property — via their own corporate venture capital (CVC) funds. BMW has purchased stakes in a plethora of ride-sharing, smart-charging and autonomous vehicle software firms through its 500 million euro ($600 million) iVentures fund, the biggest such in-house facility belonging to a carmaker. Among others that have been increasingly active are General Motors' GM Ventures, with $240 million, and Peugeot-maker PSA Group's 100 million-euro investment arm. CVC funds, a familiar feature of innovative sectors such as tech and pharmaceuticals, have become more commonplace among carmakers since the 2008-9 financial crisis. They let companies skip some of the formalities otherwise required for new investments, and pounce more swiftly on promising startups. The Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi venture will also obviate the current need to thrash out the ownership split for each new alliance acquisition. It represents a further step in the integration of the carmakers as they pursue 10 billion euros in annual synergies by 2022. France's Renault holds a 43.4 percent stake in Nissan, which in turn controls Mitsubishi. Ghosn heads Renault and chairs all three.

Nissan to unveil next-gen Qashqai on Nov. 7

Never heard of the Nissan Qashqai? That's alright, because Nissan has a big crossover lineup, and this one is only sold overseas. But in the markets where it's available, it's been an unbridled success and the cash-cow its name suggests. It was introduced in 2007, and by the end of that year, Nissan had already sold 100,000 of them in Europe alone. By 2011 it had made a million of them, and to date has sold over two million worldwide. And now it's preparing to launch an all-new model to replace it.
Spied while undergoing development a few months ago, Nissan has now announced that it will reveal the new Qashqai on November 7th. But to keep us on our toes, the Japanese automaker has released this teaser image.
Cloaked and looking like something out of Tron, the new Qashqai promises to borrow heavily from the Resonance concept shown earlier this year in Detroit (a bit ironic since the Qashqai isn't sold here) and follow the lead of the new Rogue (or X-Trail as its known in markets where it shares showroom floorspace with the Qashqai).