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Renault taking Alpine endurance racing, enters 24 Hours of Le Mans

Renault isn't letting up with the return of its Alpine brand. After announcing a partnership with Caterham to bring a new Alpine to market by 2015 (now expected by 2016), the French firm has announced it is taking Alpine racing again in the European Le Mans Series this year - and that includes The 24 Hours of Le Mans.
It has been 35 years since Alpine last competed in Le Mans, when it won the race outright and dropped the mic as it left the pits, never to return. Before that, in the 11 years it campaigned in the most famous endurance race on the planet from 1963 to 1978, it took seven class wins.
Caterham won't be involved with the race team, however; that will be an effort spearheaded by the Signatech-Nissan team that has been running GT Academy winners in LMS racing. Alpine is preparing an LMP2 chassis that will get a 500-horsepower Nissan engine for this year's championship, with the first two named drivers being Nelson Panciatici (above right) and Pierre Ragues (above left). The third driver for Le Mans will be announced later this month when the racer is launched at the Le Castellet race track in southern France.

Macron and Abe seek to avert messy Renault-Nissan breakup

TOKYO/PARIS – France and Japan's leaders met for bilateral talks to avert a diplomatic row over the Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi alliance on Friday following the surprise arrest of its Chairman Carlos Ghosn in Japan. With the carmaking alliance facing its biggest test after the ousting of Ghosn at Nissan and affiliate Mitsubishi over financial misconduct allegations, President Emmanuel Macron sat down with Prime Minister Shinzo Abe at the G20 summit in Buenos Aires. Ghosn's arrest to face accusations including the under-reporting of income has triggered new attempts by Nissan to weaken Renault's control of the Franco-Japanese alliance, adding to challenges facing Macron at home. Macron, whose government has repeatedly pressed Japan to share evidence unearthed by Nissan's internal investigation into Ghosn, "restated his firm wish that the alliance should be preserved, along with the stability of the group," an Elysee official said after Friday's meeting with Abe. Abe said it was important to "maintain a stable relationship," according to a spokesman for the Japanese leader. "However, he said the future of the alliance is up to the private-sector shareholders. The government of Japan does not prejudge the future of the alliance," the spokesman said. The French official quoted Abe as telling Macron that "the legal process must be allowed to take its course." LEADERLESS Tokyo authorities on Friday extended Ghosn's detention for a second time, by the maximum-allowed 10 days, local media reported. Prosecutors must file charges by Dec. 10 or arrest Ghosn for new crimes to hold him beyond that date. Tokyo prosecutors declined to comment. Nissan did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Ghosn's detention has left the global auto alliance without its leader and main interlocutor with the French government, which owns 15 percent of Renault and wants to maintain the ownership structure enshrining its control of the partnership. But Nissan Chief Executive Hiroto Saikawa has made clear that Nissan wants to weaken the control of its smaller parent as it carries out a governance review. Renault's 43.4 percent Nissan stake ensures an effective voting majority at shareholder meetings, while Nissan's reciprocal 15 percent Renault holding carries no voting rights.

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.