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Fiat contemplating sub-brand to compete with Dacia, Datsun

You can add Fiat to the admittedly short list of automakers considering a low-cost brand to rival Dacia. The inexpensive Eastern European brand from Renault-Nissan has performed on the balance sheet like a premium model line, and the money the alliance is taking off the table is encouraging other players to deal themselves in. Pretty soon Nissan's Datsun sub-brand will join the Dacia party, going on sale in Russia, Indonesia and India and will claim even more rubles, rupiahs and rupees for the parent company. Volkswagen recently said it will make a decision this year on a budget line for the Chinese market. With the euthanasia of Lancia and plans to move the Fiat brand upmarket, company CEO Sergio Marchionne wonders aloud to Automotive News Europe whether there could be room for a new budget brand underneath Fiat.
We're told that the initiative has been in the idea box for five years and even moved to the stage of name considerations, like Innocenti, but worries about profit kept it from realization. If such a range were to be developed, Marchionne says it couldn't be built in Italy and stay within budget, and the company is "analyzing its manufacturing capacity outside of Europe to see if a low-cost brand is viable."

Demand for electric car rentals unplugged by range anxiety

It's the hurdle that electric vehicles must clear to be launched into the mainstream: range anxiety. But this time it isn't prospective customers who worry about running out of juice, Bloomberg reports, but renters who return to car rental agencies before their lease is up and trade their EVs in for more traditional gasoline-powered autos and gas-electric hybrids.
"People are very keen to try [electric vehicles], but they will switch out of the contract part way through ... they think they can't get to a charging station," says Lee Broughton, head of sustainability at Enterprise. Enterprise customers who rent EVs reportedly trade them in 1.6 days into the rental period on average, which compares unfavorably to the six- to seven-day rental periods of traditional, fuel-burning automobiles.
Christopher Agnew, an analyst at MKM Holdings LLC, says that longer range would help rental customers' range anxiety, especially since they are usually renting vehicles in unfamiliar places.

Nissan announces limited-edition 2014 GT-R in Midnight Opal

Nissan has unveiled the 2014 GT-R Special Edition. Finished in Midnight Opal paint, the GT-R SE will be limited to just 100 units worldwide, with 50 earmarked for the US.
With sales slated to start this fall, the Special Edition of the 545-horsepower GT-R tacks $6,000 on to the $105,590 price of a GT-R Premium. The hand-applied Midnight Opal paint isn't the only special item, though. Forged RAYS wheels are included in a ten-spoke design that's never before made it to American shores, and there's a dry carbon-fiber rear spoiler, similar in design and appearance to the one found on the GT-R Black and Track Editions. Finally, a gold-plated plaque has been fitted to single out the GT-R Special Edition from the very fast herd.
US sales of the GT-R SE are slated to begin in September. Scroll down for the official press blast.