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Nissan may take control of struggling Mitsubishi Motors

Update: The reports were largely correct. Nissan will take a 34 percent stake in Mitsubishi for roughly $2.2b. Read all about it here. Reports say Nissan will buy a controlling stake in Mitsubishi Motors, either 30 or 34 percent, for about 200 billion yen or $1.84 billion. Nissan and Mitsubishi motors are currently part of a joint venture, NMKV, to build minicars together. Nissan is also responsible for reporting fuel-economy discrepancies with cars built under the joint-venture agreement, which put Mitsubishi in its current weakened state. Earlier today, reports surfaced that the fuel-economy issues were wider ranging than originally thought. Mitsubishi now admits that all of its Japanese-market cars sold since 1991 could have had faked fuel-economy data. Shares of Mitsubishi Motors have dropped by about half since the scandal was uncovered, opening the door for a takeover. While Nissan is a much larger company, it can benefit from Mitsubishi's 60-percent share of Japan's minicar market. The two companies also had plans to build electric vehicles together in the joint venture. Japan's Nikkei reports that talks are ongoing between the company and that a decision could be made Thursday by the companies' boards. Related Video: News Source: Nikkei Green Mitsubishi Nissan

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.

Question of the Day: Most heinous act of badge engineering?

Badge engineering, in which one company slaps its emblems on another company's product and sells it, has a long history in the automotive industry. When Sears wanted to sell cars, a deal was made with Kaiser-Frazer and the Sears Allstate was born. Iranians wanted new cars in the 1960s, and the Rootes Group was happy to offer Hillman Hunters for sale as Iran Khodro Paykans. Sometimes, though, certain badge-engineered vehicles made sense only in the 26th hour of negotiations between companies. The Suzuki Equator, say, which was a puzzling rebadge job of the Nissan Frontier. How did that happen? My personal favorite what-the-heck-were-they-thinking example of badge engineering is the 1971-1973 Plymouth Cricket. Chrysler Europe, through its ownership of the Rootes Group, was able to ship over Hillman Avanger subcompacts for sale in the US market. This would have made sense... if Chrysler hadn't already been selling rebadged Mitsubishi Colt Galants (as Dodge Colts) and Simca 1100s as (Simca 1204s) in its American showrooms. Few bought the Cricket, despite its cheery ad campaign. So, what's the badge-engineered car you find most confounding? Chrysler Dodge Automakers Mitsubishi Nissan Suzuki Automotive History question of the day badge engineering question