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2021 Infiniti Q50 Red Sport 400 Road Test | Z engine preview

There isn’t much reason to take another look at the 2021 Infiniti Q50 Red Sport 400 on the surface. ItÂ’s largely the same sedan as it was when we drove it in 2016: powerful and stylish, but lacking in tech and polish. However, whatÂ’s under the hood is of far more interest to us today than it was just a year ago. ThatÂ’s because the 3.0-liter twin-turbo V6 powering this Infiniti is migrating over to the next Nissan Z car. Nissan announced that the production Z would get a 3.0-liter twin-turbo V6 not long after it revealed the Z Proto. There are no other twin-turbo V6s in NissanÂ’s arsenal but this one, meaning that the VR30DDTT engine in this Infiniti is destined for the Z — plus, there's photo confirmation. The big question remaining is: How new or different will it be? Its most potent state of tune is rated at 400 horsepower and 350 pound-feet of torque. ThatÂ’s a high number versus most other boosted six-cylinders, and perhaps most importantly, itÂ’s more potent than the 382-horsepower 2021 Toyota GR Supra 3.0. As weÂ’ll soon explain, though, numbers only tell part of the story. Transplanting the InfinitiÂ’s V6 into the next Z surely wonÂ’t be without challenges, either. Nissan is promising a six-speed manual in the Z. Meanwhile, this engine is exclusively paired with a traditional seven-speed automatic transmission in the Q50 and Q60. Nissan hitched this engine up with a manual in a 370Z SEMA show car years ago, but now it must devise a production car solution. ThereÂ’s also the question of whether Nissan will use the same seven-speed as the automatic option in the Z, or come up with something a bit more aggressive. The cost-efficient (and likely) solution would be reusing the seven-speed, not unlike the Supra's eight-speed traditional automatic.  Having all of this in mind, we set out to see how this engine sits today as a preview to the Z.  Going from the big, naturally aspirated VQ series V6 to a smaller twin-turbo V6 will bring about the obvious changes. The rabid and uncouth personality of the outgoing VQ is nowhere to be found in the sweet and smooth new engine. ItÂ’s not quite the silky, effortless BMW inline-six found in the Supra, but it brings an air of refinement and maturity that's simply not there in the current Z. And then thereÂ’s the torque. All 350 pounds of twist are available at 1,600 rpm in the Q50 Red Sport 400, which means the shove in the back would theoretically start just off idle.

Ghosn: 'While I'm proud of our EV leadership, I know it's not enough.'

Renault-Nissan CEO Carlos Ghosn has written something like a State of the Union on electric vehicles and the carbon economy. We'd sum it up as, 'we're working on it but we all need to work harder.' Ghosn believes all of the commitments made at the Paris COP21 climate change conference are a start, but "the support of the business community is imperative," in coordination with the public sector. He stresses that he's after an "orderly transition," one that uses what we have now in order to go where many believe we need to go. That means no threats or revolution, no "aggressive government intervention and centralized demand and control," but rather a "practical, affordable way to begin reducing dependence" on the fuel that turns the skies brown. Ghosn wraps up his manifesto this way: "The UN Secretary General recently said that we are the first generation to feel the effects of climate change and the last to be able to do anything to stop it. This is a call to action, and the auto industry is committed to doing its part." Based on the undeniable shift toward the electrification of the automobile, we know that the call is being answered. Given the limited market share EVs have today, it could still use some more people and companies picking up the phone. With vehicle numbers expected to grow from 800 million to more than two billion by 2050, "transition will occur one way or another," Ghosn writes. Head over to Forbes to read Ghosn's thoughts.

The UK votes for Brexit and it will impact automakers

It's the first morning after the United Kingdom voted for what's become known as Brexit – that is, to leave the European Union and its tariff-free internal market. Now begins a two-year process in which the UK will have to negotiate with the rest of the EU trading bloc, which is its largest export market, about many things. One of them may be tariffs, and that could severely impact any automaker that builds cars in the UK. This doesn't just mean companies that you think of as British, like Mini and Jaguar. Both of those automakers are owned by foreign companies, incidentally. Mini and Rolls-Royce are owned by BMW, Jaguar and Land Rover by Tata Motors of India, and Bentley by the VW Group. Many other automakers produce cars in the UK for sale within that country and also export to the EU. Tariffs could damage the profits of each of these companies, and perhaps cause them to shift manufacturing out of the UK, significantly damaging the country's resurgent manufacturing industry. Autonews Europe dug up some interesting numbers on that last point. Nissan, the country's second-largest auto producer, builds 475k or so cars in the UK but the vast majority are sent abroad. Toyota built 190k cars last year in Britain, of which 75 percent went to the EU and just 10 percent were sold in the country. Investors are skittish at the news. The value of the pound sterling has plummeted by 8 percent as of this writing, at one point yesterday reaching levels not seen since 1985. Shares at Tata Motors, which counts Jaguar and Land Rover as bright jewels in its portfolio, were off by nearly 12 percent according to Autonews Europe. So what happens next? No one's terribly sure, although the feeling seems to be that the jilted EU will impost tariffs of up to 10 percent on UK exports. It's likely that the UK will reciprocate, and thus it'll be more expensive to buy a European-made car in the UK. Both situations will likely negatively affect the country, as both production of new cars and sales to UK consumers will both fall. Evercore Automotive Research figures the combined damage will be roughly $9b in lost profits to automakers, and an as-of-yet unquantified impact on auto production jobs. Perhaps the EU's leaders in Brussels will be in a better mood in two years, and the process won't devolve into a trade war. In the immediate wake of the Brexit vote, though, the mood is grim, the EU leadership is angry, and investors are spooked.