1990 Nissan 300zx Turbo Coupe 2-door 3.0l on 2040-cars

Auto blog

Datsun reveals new On-Do budget sedan in Russia [w/video]

When Nissan revived the Datsun brand name, it essentially hit the "undo" button on the rebranding it undertook decades ago. But this time, the Datsun name is being used solely as a budget brand for developing markets. The reborn marque launched in India this past July with its Go hatchback, returned in September with the Go+ minivan and revealed the Redi-Go concept just last month. And now it's back again with the new On-Do sedan.
Launched in Moscow by CEO Carlos Ghosn, the On-Do was designed and engineered in Japan specifically for the Russian market - Nissan's fifth largest worldwide - where it will be built at the AvtoVaz plant in Togliatti. Decidedly budget-oriented, the Datsun On-Do is a four-door, five-seat econo-box measuring 172 inches long, 67 inches wide and 60 inches tall with an 18.7 cubic-foot trunk which Datsun describes as class-leading. Punctuating an otherwise bland shape is a large front grille and lighting front and rear that looks (and very well might be) bigger than the wheels.
Not that the Datsun On-Do needs a big contact patch to transfer power to the road: motivation is provided by a 1.6-liter engine with a grand total of - wait for it... wait a little longer - 87 horsepower. Which might strike you as a reasonable amount of muscle, considering the 400,000 rubles Datsun is getting for the On-Do (but consider that translates to about $11,300). That's a couple grand more than what Nissan gets for the Micra in that other giant northern country, or about the same amount it gets for the Versa in the US (which sells in Russia for 499k in rubles) - both of which are powered by what is in all likelihood the same 1.6-liter four but producing 109 hp. Of course Russia has different tax rates than the United States or Canada, but with such little power, the Datsun would fall into Russia's lowest tax bracket.

Nismo mashes it up with Sentra 370Z and Altima GT-R

Nismo was a tuning division once content (or required) to restrict itself to just one or two models at a time, but these days Nissan is taking the gloves off and allowing its motorsport department to tune just about everything's it's got.
Now in its thirtieth year, Nismo tunes versions of the GT-R, 370Z, Juke and Versa Note, and will soon be working its magic on the Sentra and European-market Qashqai and Pulsar. And that's not even taking into account its considerable racing programs. At this rate, Nismo is going to run out of vehicles to tune pretty quickly, so what has it done? Invent new ones!
No, we're afraid that Nissan is not letting its Nismo division produce its own stand-alone product, but it has released two sets of amusing renderings combining two vehicles into one. One depicts a GT-R crossed with a Teana sedan (better known in these parts at the Altima), while the other crosses a Sentra with a 370Z.

California has sold 102,440 EVs since Volt, Leaf went on sale in 2010

Last July, Plug In America declared that a Mitsubishi i-MiEV in Alabama was the 100,000th electric vehicle sold in the US. Today, the California Plug-In Electric Vehicle Collaborative announced that that many EVs have now been sold in California alone. To celebrate the milestone – which was actually 102,440 EVs sold in the Golden State between when the Chevy Volt and Nissan Leaf were introduced in late 2010 and the end of August 2014 – we spoke with some of the key players in moving the battery-powered metal off of the dealer lots and into driver's driveways. CARB's Mary Nichols drives a Honda Fit EV, and said that in LA, it's no longer "a weird thing." The chairman of the California Air Resources Board (CARB), Mary Nichols, took a broad overview. Nichols herself drives a Honda Fit EV, and said that in her home of Los Angeles, that's no longer "a weird thing." She told AutoblogGreen that, "The industry people that we work with are very clear about this, they think the electric cars sell themselves, in terms of their driveability and attractiveness, if you can get a person into one," she said. "The best way to get a person into one is for them to see it somewhere, and that's really what we're celebrating here. As you get to critical mass, and I think 100,000 vehicles is getting to that point, people start looking at these as an option as opposed to something that they walked into the dealership already wanting to get." Given CARB's support of hydrogen vehicles as well as EVs, we had to ask Nichols when she thought H2 would hit the 100,000-vehicle milestone. She declined to answer that question, but did say that, "Hydrogen vehicles are just beginning to be available in the market. They are just being very selectively and even more cautiously introduced than plug-in vehicles because of concerns that customers will have a good experience, and a good experience means that there has to be an adequate supply of fueling stations," she said. "There has been a lot of expression of interest and support and vision in this direction but we are just at the beginning stages, where we were with plug-in vehicles a few years ago. It's going to take a while." If you ask Nissan's Brendan Jones how a state can support a new technology like plug-in vehicles, he will point to how EVs were rolled out in California. Turns out, the company has learned a lot from selling so many Leafs there.