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Assessing Sebastian Vettel's first 100 days as Infiniti's director of performance

Whenever a new US president is elected, we know to expect a performance review as soon as he (or she) has spent 100 days in office. Sebastian Vettel, arguably given a job that is more important to Infiniti than the US president, has been the brand's director of performance for one hundred revolutions of The Blue Marble, and Infiniti has put together a videographic glimpse of his work at Paul Ricard, in the US and England.
We probably won't really get a grip on the full results of his efforts for a while - we doubt that he's been in his post long enough to significantly alter the trajectory of the Q50 sedan, for instance. But then again, Infiniti insists he's been integral to the car's dynamics development regime, suggesting he's been working as a test driver for some time before these 100 days. Of course, Vettel is a race car driver and brand ambassador first and foremost, but when he tells a Q50 engineer that "For the future, I think it's more comfortable to have the shift paddles on the steering wheel," we get the sense that he won't hesitate to suggest changes in forthcoming products. Check out more of his inputs in the video below as well as a press release detailing his visit to the tech center in Cranfield, UK.

Nissan Pathfinder, Infiniti JX in transmission safety probe

Nissan may be forced to recall 110,000 Pathfinder and Infiniti JX35 crossovers, due to a number of customer complaints. Consumers report suddenly losing power, with repair facilities blaming the issue on faulty transmission cooler line connections. Both the Pathfinder and JX35 use a continuously variable transmission. As of right now, the only vehicles being investigated are from model year 2013.
Nissan has been cooperating with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, according to a report from Reuters, and it has developed a fix for the affected vehicles. It's not clear whether this will develop into a full-blown recall, as there have been no known cases of injuries or crashes. But with a potential 110,000 vehicles prone to sudden power loss, a recall seems to be a likely outcome.

NHTSA opens investigation into Nissan's handling of airbag recall

In March of 2014, Nissan recalled eight models among its Nissan and Infiniti brands, totaling more than one million vehicles, over faulty occupant classification system software controlling the passenger airbag. The company discovered a variety of factors that would interfere with the system's ability to detect an adult passenger in the shotgun seat, resulting in an illuminated warning on on the dashboard and the passenger airbag not deploying in an accident. Yet 124 complaints submitted to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration since the recall allege that the dealer-installed fix hasn't actually fixed the problem; some consumers say the problem persists after multiple trips to the dealer. The Detroit News reports that NHTSA is opening an investigation into the matter to determine whether a new recall is needed. The occupant sensor has been a bugbear for Nissan over the past couple of years; a much smaller recall for the issue in 2013 covered five of the eight vehicles that were recalled in 2014, and that earlier recall also continued to generate complaints after the issue had supposedly been fixed. At the same time, the company learned that in two instances there was another twist, where the dashboard warning wasn't illuminated but the passenger airbag still didn't go off in an accident. Nissan isn't alone, though, with airbag recalls on a steep upswing across the industry even before the Takata debacle.