2005 Nissan 350z Grand Touring Convertible 2-door 3.5l on 2040-cars

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Why China will soon lead the electric vehicle market

China could be the world's largest electric vehicle market by 2020, thanks to significant government subsidies and the major drawbacks of owning an internal combustion model there. The country's populace registered 75,000 EVs in 2014, and sales figures in 2015 looked even better. In a new video, Renault-Nissan examines the trend and why it happened. Chinese cities heavily encourage buyers to go green through vehicle incentives, but they also make it a hassle to be a polluter. In some places, there's a lottery to limit vehicle registrations and alternating driving bans for even or odd license plate numbers. However, these limits don't apply to EVs, and the country's automakers have benefited from the regulations by introducing small, inexpensive electric models, albeit with sometimes hilarious styling. China's emissions regulations will get even tighter in the coming years. In fact, a Honda exec recently predicted the company wouldn't be able to sell any models there without some form of electric assistance by 2025. Get a better look at the country's electric push to clean up vehicle pollution in Renault-Nissan's video. Related Video:

Renault-Nissan debuts new Common Module Family for future vehicles

Platform sharing is nothing new for the 14-year-old Renault-Nissan Alliance, but this partnership is set to introduce new modular platform components that will eventually underpin 11 Renault models and three Nissan vehicles by 2020. Rather than being a typical platform, the Common Module Family (CMF) actually represents five segments of a platform that can be used in various applications, and one of the first vehicles to use this architecture will be the 2014 Nissan Rogue (spy shots of which are shown below) when it arrives "in late 2013."
As pictured in the image above (click to expand), CMF is composed of four chassis component, principally the front underbody, rear underbody, engine bay and cockpit as well as a common electrical system. Besides the next-gen Rogue, future Nissan models to share CMF will include the Qashqai and X-Trail, while Renault models will start using the platform next year on vehicles including the Scénic and Laguna. The CMF architecture is expected to help the Alliance reduce the parts cost of a vehicle by up to 30 percent and reduce the entry cost by up to 40 percent. The official press release with more details about CMF, and what it means for Renault-Nissan, is posted below.

Datsun previews new budget sedan for Russia [w/video]

Nobody does cars on the cheap quite like the Renault-Nissan Alliance. The former part of the equation already has its Dacia brand of cost-effective, no-frills vehicles that have become a favorite of Top Gear co-host James May, and last summer, the latter revived its Datsun nameplate for a budget brand of its own.
The reborn Datsun 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 given us our first look at an upcoming budget sedan developed specifically for the Russian market.
The as-yet unnamed vehicle (which we'll bet will incorporate the word "go" into its nameplate somehow) is set to debut on April 4, where it will launch the Datsun brand in Russia. Few details are available at this point, but the low-cost sedan was designed in Japan to offer Russian drivers "an engaging driving experience, peace of mind ownership and accessibility at the right and transparent price, with a competitive Total Cost of Ownership."