2010 Nissan Sentra 2.0 Sl on 2040-cars

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Nissan recalling more than 1M vehicles for airbags that may fail to deploy

Nissan and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration have issued a recall for 989,701 vehicles in the US due to an issue with their passenger-side airbag systems. Affected Nissan models include the Altima, Leaf, Pathfinder and Sentra from the 2013 and 2014 model years, and 2013 NV200 taxis. Affected Infiniti models include the 2013 JX35 and 2014 Q50 and QX60 utility vehicles.
Reuters is reporting that a total of 1,053,479 vehicles are included in the recall globally, with about 60,000 of the affected vehicles having been sold in Canada.
The fault apparently lies in something called the occupant classification system, which may, in the recalled vehicles, incorrectly classify the passenger seat as empty when it is in fact occupied by an adult. When the system fails to recognize the passenger, the passenger-side airbag may deactivate, and could therefore fail to deploy in the event of a crash.

Nissan applies for 'R-Hybrid' trademark, but what is it for?

Patent and trademark filings are sort of like tasseography for those of us in the auto industry. If you know where and how to look at something, there's a lot to be figured out. Take this trademark filing from Nissan - it's similar to the Pure Drive badge found on a Versa or Sentra, but the bottom half sports the phrase "R-Hybrid." This wouldn't be remarkable if the "R" in R-Hybrid weren't the same style as the "R" in the Nissan GT-R's badge, right down to the serifs.
While it's easy to see this as grasping at straws, it makes a fair degree of sense. The R35 GT-R may be a dominant performance machine, but it's been around since 2008, which is donkey years in the automotive industry. And based on the recent crop of hybridized hypercars and racecars, a hybrid GT-R doesn't seem like such a stretch.
As Car And Driver points out, figuring out that the GT-R will go hybrid isn't hard - figuring out when it will arrive, is. The buff book rightly points out that a new GT-R isn't expected until 2017, but that designing and trademarking a badge four years ahead of time is a bit odd. Car and Driver speculates that we could see a mildly hybridized R35, although the chances do seem remarkably low. Head over to C/D for a more thorough rundown on why this just might be a GT-R badge, including comparisons with other R-badged Nissans.

Nissan shows off Le Mans Prototype, says it's world's fastest electric racer [w/video]

Nissan has announced plans and details around its upcoming all-electric racing car, the ZEOD RC. The Zero Emission On Demand Racing car is said to be capable of a top speed in excess of 300 kilometers per hour (186.4 miles per hour), is shaped a bit like the closed-cockpit version of the DeltaWing (albeit, to our eyes, better looking) and will make its debut in 2014 at the 24 Hours of Le Mans. This weekend, visitors to the race will have the opportunity to view the prototype near the Circuit de la Sarthe.
Nissan's ZEOD RC has been invited by Le Mans organizers to compete as the Garage 56 entry in next year's race; that's essentially a spot on the grid held for vehicles with new and/or cutting edge technology.
Short of announcing a partnership with Michelin to develop tires for the EV racecar, however, Nissan is mum on any kind of battery or motor specification for the ZEOD. The press release (below) offers a sense that the Nissan and Nismo teams have still got a lot of work to do before the 2014 race. Ben Bowlby, designer of the ZEOD RC, says "We have many options to consider and test. The test program is part of a longer term goal of developing a system and a set of rules for this type of technology in partnership with the ACO that would be best suited to competing at the highest level of this sport."