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Nissan executive Jun Seki resigns to become president of Nidec

YOKOHAMA, Japan — The executive tasked with leading a recovery at Nissan said he had decided to resign just weeks into his new job, a move that could disrupt the automaker's push to turn the corner on scandal and slumping sales. Jun Seki, Nissan's vice chief operating officer and a former contender for chief executive, told Reuters he was leaving to become the president of Nidec, a Kyoto-based manufacturer of automotive components and precision motors. He will likely depart in January after three decades at Nissan, including a stint heading its China business. "I love Nissan and I feel bad about leaving the turnaround work unfinished, but I am 58 years old, and this is an offer I could not refuse. It's probably my last chance to lead a company too," he said in a brief interview. "It's not about money. In fact, I will take a financial hit since Nissan pays us well," Seki said. He declined to elaborate further. Nissan and Nidec declined to comment. Seeking to roll back some of the costly expansion under ousted chairman Carlos Ghosn, Nissan has embarked on wide-ranging turnaround plan. That plan, which began in April, is now on track to generate a cumulative few hundred billion yen in cost cuts and operational efficiency gains by the year to March 2022, according to two Nissan sources who spoke on condition of anonymity. One hundred billion yen is roughly equal to $915 million (707 million pounds). Adding to concerns about disruption among Nissan's top management, the sources said that Seki, Chief Operating Officer Ashwani Gupta and Chief Executive Makoto Uchida have so far failed to gel as a team after being named to their posts in October. They officially took over on Dec. 1. "There was no instant, cohesive chemistry achieved by those appointments," one of the sources said. Gupta and Uchida were not immediately available for comment. Seki's resignation could further complicate Nissan's relationship with top shareholder Renault SA. Seki recently worked in Paris for a year and was seen as relatively close to the French automaker. PERSUADED IN THE END Asked if he was leaving Nissan because he was passed over for the role of chief executive, Seki said that was not the case but did not elaborate. He and Uchida, most recently the head of the China business, had been seen as top contenders for the CEO job. Reuters reported in September that Uchida was seen as more favored by Renault.

Nissan Canada to end Versa sales with Micra launch

There's plenty of space in Canada. In fact, with the second largest land mass of any country in the world, Canada has a population density of just nine people per square mile. But apparently there isn't enough room for more than one cheap Nissan in the True North, Strong and Free.
As you may recall, Nissan Canada recently announced it would begin offering the Micra hatchback with a starting price of less than ten thousand Canadian dollars - significantly less than the nearly $12k it charges for the Versa sedan. As a result, Nissan will reportedly cease offering the Versa sedan in new home of the olympic gold medal for hockey.
Apparently the Versa was a slow seller in Canada, a country in which European tastes tend to prevail - particularly in the Eastern provinces - more than they do in the United States to the south. Nissan evidently hopes that the Micra (a model created principally for the European market) will do better than the American-centric Versa ever did there. According to sales numbers cited by Automotive News, Nissan sold barely more than 12,000 Versa sedans and hatchbacks in Canada last year, but over 117,000 in the United States.

Nissan announces 5-year/100,000-mile bumper-to-bumper warranty for commercial vehicles

Nissan is a relative new-kid when it comes to the commercial van market in the US, with its commercial vehicles division only introducing the first NV vans in February 2011. But Nissan isn't letting its newcomer status keep it from challenging the established players in the segment. The company's latest shot over competitors' bows is announcing that, starting for the 2014 model year, its NV Cargo, NV Passenger and NV200 Compact Cargo vans carry a best-in-class, five-year/100,000-mile bumper-to-bumper warranty. Their powertrain coverage also gets a 40,000-mile increase to five years/100,000 miles.
The new warranty is a huge leap over adversaries in the segment and should lure in some buyers looking for a longer term of coverage. The Mercedes-Benz Sprinter, Ram ProMaster, Ford Transit and Transit Connect all carry a three-year/36,000-mile bumper-to-bumper warranty. The Fords offer five years and 60,000 miles of powertrain coverage, while all of the others increase that to 100,000 miles. Until this announcement, Nissan had the standard thee years of coverage, as well.
The Japanese automaker is clearly hungry to grab a bigger piece of the commercial van pie. Its heavy-duty NV vans have a relatively small 5.3 percent market share in their segment as of May 2014, according to the company's figures, but the NV200 is doing better with a 19.4 percent share. The division as a whole is on the upswing, though, with sales up 88 percent so far in 2014. With just a few years under its belt, Nissan Commercial Vehicles seems unafraid to challenge the status quo in the segment. Let's see how buyers respond. Scroll down to read the full announcement about the new warranty.