Brand New Gt-r Premium! Awd! Blue! 545 Horsepower! Godzilla!gorgeous! on 2040-cars

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Nissan will expand free* charging incentive to 25 Leaf markets

Nissan has proof that giving away a bit of electricity makes buying a new Leaf all the more enticing. Thanks to a deal that offers free charging to some Leaf owners in Texas, one dealer there claims his Leaf sales have tripled. We don't see national sales climbing quite that high starting July 1 2014, but an announcement made today at the New York Auto Show will likely give the EV a boost. New Leaf buyers will get to charge for free at public chargers for two years. Within limits: a max of 30 minutes at CHAdeMO and an hour at Level 2 stations. Nissan will expand its "No Charge to Charge" promotion to at least 25 markets across the US. The deal means that new Leaf buyers will get to charge for free at public chargers that accept the new EZ-Charge card, within limits. That means a maximum of 30 minutes at CHAdeMO DC fast chargers and just one hour at Level 2 stations, Brendan Jones, director of Nissan EV infrastructure strategy and development, told AutoblogGreen. This should be plenty of time, Jones said, since the average Leaf driver comes to a CHAdeMO station with 35-40 percent state-of-charge on the battery and the average time they stay is around 16-17 minutes. A half hour is fine at a fast charger, since the battery will get to 80 percent full within that time, but we're less impressed with the one-hour limit at a Level 2 station, since that will only put maybe 20 miles into the battery. The EZ-Charge card is compatible with four of "the leading EV charging networks," which here means ChargePoint, Blink, AeroVironment and NRG eVgo. Nissan says the 25 markets make up over 80 percent of all the US Leaf sales. Anyone who buys a new Leaf in one of the specified markets - or bought one on or after April 1 of this year - will get the free-to-use EZ-Charge card (others can still get the card, which means only carrying one charger company fob instead of four). The promotion starts July 1 in 10 markets (San Francisco, Sacramento, San Diego, Seattle, Portland, Nashville, Phoenix, Dallas-Fort Worth, Houston and Washington, DC) and then expands to the next 15 by the end of June, 2015. Nissan would not specify which markets these will be, but they will be where the Leaf is selling well and there are DC fast chargers. That means, we suspect, places like Chicago, St. Louis, Philadelphia and Atlanta.

Nissan Juke-R pitted against Bugatti Veyron in brilliantly odd drag race

The Nissan Juke-R must've been a tough car to build a business case for, yet the madcap little crossover with the heart of a GT-R is now a production reality. Admittedly, we should probably assign some quotes around "production," since the vehicle is being built on a one-by-one on-demand basis at extraordinary cost - at an estimated price of well over $600,000, it has little in common with the already bonkers everyday Juke. We're just happy it exists at all.
With 545 horsepower, we also didn't figure it needed more power. But that apparently hasn't stopped the tuning community, which probably only had to adapt performance adders designed for the GT-R to the mechanically similar CUV. Thus, we end up with this mile-long drag race, which pits a Bugatti Veyron against a Juke-R prepared by an outfit called Shpilli Villi Engineering with a claimed 700 horsepower. That's still well down on horsepower versus the legendary quad-turbo supercar, but the much smaller Nissan also figures to be a lot lighter while boasting similar all-wheel-drive traction. We don't have much more information to go on other than this video, and it doesn't appear that both drivers necessarily got their best runs in, but it certainly makes for jaw-dropping watching. Check it out by scrolling below.

2015 Nissan Juke keeps its funky

The Nissan Juke is one of the most polarizing vehicles on the road today, but that doesn't mean it hasn't been a sales success, especially in Europe. Nissan is giving the the CUV its first styling refresh at the Geneva Motor Show. While the design changes will almost certainly be universal, the mechanical changes are still somewhat of a mystery for the US market. Nissan makes it clear in its press release below that it covers only the European model, and details about the North American model are coming later.
The exterior changes put a focus on making the Juke look a bit more angular and sporty. The lights on the fenders are now formed into a jagged point and somewhat echo the boomerang-shaped taillights. It also features Nissan's new, thicker V-shaped chrome grille. The door mirrors receive LED turn signals, and the lower portion of the rear receives a simulated mesh grille to look more aggressive. Other than some new color schemes, the interior is basically unchanged. However, the luggage area has been reshaped to increase storage capacity by 40 percent to 12.5 cubic feet (354 liters).
European buyers are getting a new 1.2-liter DIG-T turbocharged engine with 113 horsepower (115PS) and 140 pound-feet of torque (190Nm), and the 1.6 DIG-T also gets an increased compression ratio to produce 188 hp and is offered with either a six-speed manual or Nissan's Xtronic CVT. The all-wheel-drive system has also been upgraded with a torque vectoring system.