2011 Nissan Armada Platinum Sport Utility 4-door 5.6l on 2040-cars

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Nissan, Infiniti will each show a next-gen concept EV in Detroit

The chief designer for Nissan and Infiniti said Wednesday that both brands will debut concept electric vehicles at the 2019 North American International Auto Show in Detroit in January that will likely show off Nissan's next-generation electric drive systems and the evolution of the brands' EV design direction first hinted at with Infiniti's stunning Q Inspiration. Alfonso Albaisa, senior vice president of global design for Nissan, said the concepts will reflect a similar departure from standard vehicle proportions as the Q Inspiration. He would not say exactly what segment or segments the concepts would represent, but he dropped some hints at a couple possible powertrains for the concepts. Similar additional concepts will follow later in the year at the Tokyo Motor Show, he said. "The Q Inspiration kind of hinted at it and we avoided discussing too much about what's driving that car. Of course, we talked about VC-Turbo, which is also possible," he said in an interview with Autoblog. "But if you really look at the car, Q Insipiration shifted the cabin forward. It was the first one to break the [mold] of Infiniti. So how to still have this artistry and this sense of carrozzerie" (Italian for coachbuilding) "of Infiniti without kind of the stereotypical long hood and the cabin shifted back and the windshield has to go through the center of the front wheel, these golden rules." Infiniti debuted the Q Inspiration concept sedan in Detroit in January, with a swoopy, ghost-like design influenced by an archer shooting an arrow through the air, and innovative design features like an elongated cabin that expands interior space, a relative lack of chrome, and other features. It's powered by a compact variable compression turbocharged engine, which can change compression ratios on the fly to maximize efficiency and power, depending on the situation. But Albaisa said the two concepts for Detroit could feature Nissan's e-Power series hybrid technology, which has mostly featured in Japan, and which features small, isolated gasoline engines that exist only to charge the batteries, not drive the wheels. They will also feature a new generation of battery packs, which he calls a "magic carpet." "It's getting denser, it's getting thinner, the cars are able to get a little bit bigger, more space, we can really do much more," he said.

Nissan may take control of struggling Mitsubishi Motors

Update: The reports were largely correct. Nissan will take a 34 percent stake in Mitsubishi for roughly $2.2b. Read all about it here. Reports say Nissan will buy a controlling stake in Mitsubishi Motors, either 30 or 34 percent, for about 200 billion yen or $1.84 billion. Nissan and Mitsubishi motors are currently part of a joint venture, NMKV, to build minicars together. Nissan is also responsible for reporting fuel-economy discrepancies with cars built under the joint-venture agreement, which put Mitsubishi in its current weakened state. Earlier today, reports surfaced that the fuel-economy issues were wider ranging than originally thought. Mitsubishi now admits that all of its Japanese-market cars sold since 1991 could have had faked fuel-economy data. Shares of Mitsubishi Motors have dropped by about half since the scandal was uncovered, opening the door for a takeover. While Nissan is a much larger company, it can benefit from Mitsubishi's 60-percent share of Japan's minicar market. The two companies also had plans to build electric vehicles together in the joint venture. Japan's Nikkei reports that talks are ongoing between the company and that a decision could be made Thursday by the companies' boards. Related Video: News Source: Nikkei Green Mitsubishi Nissan

Nissan gives a better look at its Vision Gran Turismo concept

Just the other day, Nissan released an image showing all of its cars you can drive in Gran Turismo, with one little mystery hiding in the bottom right corner: a draped shape with the date June 10, 2014 - suggesting that it would reveal its Vision Gran Turismo on that date. Well, if you look at that calendar you'll realize that June 10 came and went yesterday, and Nissan didn't reveal the car.
As it turns out, what the folks at Nissan meant when they indicated June 10 was that they'd release the next teaser on that date, and that's what we have here. The teaser hints at one menacing-looking futuristic chunk of virtual performance meta, but "the next chapter" won't be revealed until next week on Monday, June 16. At that point we hope Nissan will actually reveal the full thing and not another teaser, but one way or another the finished product is expected to be present in the flesh (or sheet metal) for the Goodwood Festival of Speed at the end of the month.