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Nissan e-NV200 electric van will start FedEx testing in DC

The electric van test program that Nissan and FedEx announced today at the Washington Auto Show isn't really all that new. After all, FedEx is already testing the all-electric e-NV200 in Singapore, Japan and Germany. The news today is that FedEx will be one of the first companies to test the EV in the US, and Nissan brought a prototype to the show to gin up interest. 200 CHAdeMO stations were added in December, a monthly record. The e-NV200 uses a powertrain similar to what's in the Nissan Leaf and weighs about the same as that passenger car, but Nissan isn't talking about US performance figures quite yet. Nissan isn't even saying if the vehicle will even come to the US, but this test program sure hints that something like that is in the works. For now, all that's official is that Nissan will bring two - yes, just two - e-NV200 units to the US, letting FedEx test one in the Washington, DC area for between six to eight weeks before cycling the EVs to other companies in the US over the next year. The idea, as you may have guessed, it to gather data on how companies might use this van and let Nissan figure out if it wants to sell the e-NE200 here. The van will start being built in Barcelona, Spain this spring and is currently intended for Europe and Japan. FedEx is no stranger to greener vehicles, and has 167 EVs in its US fleet right now. Read more in the press release below. The e-NV200 can use CHAdeMO fast charging, and Nissan said today that it has helped install 570 of those DC fast chargers in the US since announcing expansion plans last year. At the time, the target was 500 chargers in 18 months, so things are progressing faster than publicly anticipated. In fact, 200 CHAdeMO stations were added in December, a monthly record. Jan. 22, 2014 Nissan and FedEx Express Put All-Electric e-NV200 to Work in Collaborative U.S. Test WASHINGTON, D.C. - FedEx Express, a subsidiary of FedEx Corp., and Nissan announced today at the Washington Auto Show that the two companies will begin testing the Nissan e-NV200, a 100 percent electric compact cargo vehicle, under real world conditions in Washington, D.C. This test marks the first time the vehicle will be running in North America. FedEx Express and Nissan have conducted similar e-NV200 tests with fleets in Japan, Singapore, the United Kingdom and Brazil. FedEx and Nissan are both committed to reducing the environmental impact of their operations worldwide.

Roller coaster or racecar, which pulls more Gs?

Looking for a thrill? You're not the only one. You'll find kindred spirits at airfields going up for a skydive, atop bridges and towers with bungees attached to their feet and standing in line for roller coasters at the local amusement park. But you'll also find them in the paddock at the racing circuit.
So what's the commonality? G-force. It's like gravity, only in each of these cases, it's experienced by human invention. But which activity subjects your body to the greatest amount of g-force? That's what Nissan set to find out.
Before putting them back in the cockpit, Nismo sent out two of its young hot-shoes - Jann Mardenborough and Mark Shulzhitskiy - to an amusement park in the UK with a camera and a g-force meter to find out if any of the coasters could produce as much lateral gravitational force as an LMP2 racing car. See what they found in the pair of videos, below.

Carlos Ghosn projects Renault-Nissan for #3 position by 2018

As the chief executive of both Renault and Nissan, Carlos Ghosn is one of the most powerful executives in the automotive industry. But at 60, he'll have to retire sooner than later: he's got three and a half years left on his contract at Renault, which mandates retirement by 65. But before his time is up, he intends to leave the Renault-Nissan Alliance among the top three automakers in the world. Currently the combined sales of Nissan, Renault and its various brands (including Dacia, Datsun and Infiniti) make the alliance the fourth largest carmaker globally, trailing behind Toyota, Volkswagen and General Motors, but ahead of Hyundai, Ford, Fiat Chrysler and Honda. But Ghosn sees the alliance's sales (and global market share) increasing in the next three years. Speaking with Automotive News Europe, Ghosn projected confidently that the alliance will hit the number three spot by 2018 – just three years from now. To get there, Ghosn knows that Nissan and Infiniti will need to increase their combined market share to 10 percent in the United States, growing around 2 to 3 percent each year between now and 2018. The challenge is that much more evident in North America where only half of the alliance participates. But it's not all about America. Ghosn also the Chinese market as equally vital to the alliance's success and that of its constituent automakers, projecting continued growth in China for the foreseeable future. He's also banked heavily on the Russian market, which may have dipped now, but in Ghosn's view is bound to recover. News Source: Automotive News - sub. req.Image Credit: Renault-Nissan Alliance Nissan Renault renault-nissan alliance