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Honda, Nissan and Mazda recalling 3 million vehicles for airbag inflators

Three million more vehicles can be added to the worldwide tally to be repaired for the faulty airbag inflators supplied by Takata. Honda, Nissan, and Mazda have all issued recalls to replace the bad part, including about 1.2 million of them in North America. NHTSA has been investigating all three companies, plus Chrysler and Toyota, for potentially affected vehicles.
Honda is recalling roughly 1.02 million Civic, CR-V, Odyssey and Element models In North America, built between April 2000 and October 2002. Mazda needs to repair 14,794 units of the RX-8 and Mazda6, and Nissan has 228,000 vehicles in North America to be fixed.
Chrysler is also starting what it calls a "regional field action" to replace the inflators in the 2006 Dodge Charger, according to a company spokesperson. The company says that it has not yet found the problem in any of its vehicles, but it's being done "out of an abundance of caution." The final number of Chargers affected will be announced later this week.

Nissan rowed the Note ashore [w/video]

Normally we wouldn't suggest trying to float your car on water, but Nissan has made some modifications to turn its new Versa Note hatchback into a makeshift rowing shell.
Nissan replaced the car's rear seats with a sliding rear rowing seat, modified the doors to open wider at 90 degrees and fitted a pair of oars. Most importantly, they put the whole thing on a floating platform to keep it from sinking into Eton Dorney Lake, the site of the 2012 Olympic rowing competitions in England (where the car is simply known as the Nissan Note).
Then they invited medal-winning competitive rowers Helen Glover, Sophie Hosking and Polly Swann to come along and row the thing, making use of the around-view monitor system to see where they were going. All in all it may not be quite as cool as the boats which Fiat made out of the 500 or Mini made out of its convertible, but it's still enough to float our boat. Check it out in the video clip and press release below and the image gallery above.

Nissan Leaf resale value expected to take a hit

Nissan Leaf resale values may take a tumble, according to Kelley Blue Book. The vehicle evaluation resource said the 2013 Nissan Leaf will retain around 35 percent of its MSRP after three years; that's down five percent from what KBB gave the 2012 Leaf at the end of 2011. Automotive News reports KBB adjusted the EV's residual value prediction because the used transaction prices for the 2011 model have stuck around 35 percent for the past few months due to relatively cheap gasoline, not to mention the fact that Nissan trimmed the electric's MSRP from $36,050 to $29,650 before the $7,500 tax credit.
Since used buyers are often motivated by more practical buying concerns than early adopters or those wanting to curb their carbon emissions, they may not be willing to pay more for an EV. Meanwhile, early Leaf models are now coming to auction, abandoned by rental car companies after customers shunned them in favor of traditional internal-combustion vehicles. Many of those at auction have less than 10,000 miles and carry an average transaction price of just $13,700.