Nissan president Mark Grimm confirmed over lunch recently that, while an official announcement about the electric vehicle is coming in the next 60 days, Vancouver makes the most sense for the fleet project, given its relatively temperate, battery-friendly climate.
This reasoning suggests it'll be more of a government and PR-driven extended preview exercise, rather than an engineering development program, one aimed at increasing public and private support for the infrastructure shifts needed to make electric cars viable in a country with serious winters. While the 2010 Winter Olympics in February spring to mind as an obvious opportunity to expose many politicians and media alike to Nissan's e-car, it may not be available in time, given that Nissan execs have previously said they are aiming for a debut before the end of 2010.
Like the Toyota Prius hybrid, Nissan's e-car will be a unique model not based on any current vehicle. This is a risky strategy, because it increases the time needed and costs of developing the car greatly, and was a path that GM surely regretted taking with its EV1 two-seat electric car that it (barely) sold in the early 1990s.
High costs are what killed the Maxima diesel, said Grimm, which Nissan had previously announced would come next year, as well. The Maxima diesel was expected to make up no more than 10 per cent of sales in North America, the only continent planned to receive the engine, and with all the engineering money that would be needed to pass emissions rules, Nissan decided that it would simply be too expensive to realistically appeal to a sufficient number of buyers.
Stars come out for 2010 Jaguar XJ launch
Dedicated car guy Jay Leno and supermodel Elle Macpherson added some celebrity flash to the glitzy introduction of the all-new 2010 Jaguar XJ in London recently, where the brand's radically new full-size sedan was first officially shown to the public and suitably fashionable VIP types.
At least one attendee noted that the former Tonight Show host appeared “very unenthused” at the event, and in his column that appeared soon after in London's Sunday Times, he admitted to both some jet lag, and a potential conflict of interest, having been paid by Jaguar to help introduce the car that he was just about to review in that paper.
Do consumers care about the fine but key distinction between journalists being hosted by car companies (i.e. covering travel bills on a car launch), and then actually paying a media member (in this case also a celeb) a fee to also appear somewhere?
If not, they should: the former is providing an independent view of the latest models, just like they'll do on the next launch by another company next week; while the latter is an agreed contract to appear as a paid spokesperson for the company.
That said, unlike other media there, Leno's deal with Jaguar also gave him first crack at actually driving the car, so a scoop is a scoop.
The radically redesigned XJ will battle the similarly new BMW 7 Series and the Mercedes-Benz S-Class as the most luxurious products offered by their respective brands when the biggest Jag arrives at Canadian dealers in January. But, unlike those stately and conservative designs, the new XJ goes the four-door coupe route, lining itself up closer to the Porsche Panamera and the upcoming Aston Martin Rapide end of the stylistic spectrum, at least in regular wheelbase models.
The 2010 XJ's signature styling cues include an all-black roof and rear roof pillars on all models, no matter what the body colour, as well as rear LED taillights that spill up and over the rear fender line to blend into the trunk lid. That black roof houses a standard panoramic sunroof on all models, while the black pillars and unique taillights will surely make the XJ much more distinctive from the rear than any other angle.
It all seemed to impress model Macpherson very much, who was all smiles at the XJ's launch.
The global car sales slump seemingly hasn't hurt Macpherson's busy car launch schedule, as she appeared just days earlier at an event also in London for the U.K. debut of Fiat's super-cute 500C convertible. (Fiat CEO Sergio Marchionne was quoted by Bloomberg News recently confirming that this subcompact convertible, as well as regular hatchback, Abarth performance and wagon versions, is on its way to North America, starting in 2011.)
The XJ will be available in regular and extended length L versions, to more ably pamper rear seat occupants with extra room.
The 385 hp XJ starts at $88,000 and $95,000 respectively, moving on up to a starting price of $133,500 for the top XJL Supersport, which offers 510 hp from its most powerful supercharged 5.0-litre V-8.
Honda Accord Crosstour coming this fall
In a surprisingly brief and guarded statement, Honda Canada has confirmed that it will launch a market rival to the hot-selling Toyota Venza in a few months.
Here's the entire text of the statement: “An all-new crossover vehicle, based on the Honda Accord, will go on sale in the fall of 2009 as the 2010 Honda Accord Crosstour,” said the release. “Additional information and photos will be provided later in the year.”
Camouflaged spy shots of the Crosstour suggest that it will feature a close visual link to the Accord, sharing a similar upswept character line that runs from front fender to taillights just below the door handles, as in the Accord coupe and sedan. Yet judging by such mostly uncovered spy shots, the model won't have nearly as dashing a profile as its Venza rival, which has been running in short supply at dealerships due to its unexpectedly enthusiastic market reception.
Lutz back in at GM, says Pontiac G8 will live on
After stepping down from his previous position as vice-chairman of product development at GM, in anticipation of his planned retirement announced for this fall, 77-year-old Bob Lutz has jumped back into the full-time fray and reclaimed his vice-chairman's title, this time as the head of all marketing, advertising and communications for the new GM.
In a triumphant, Trudeau-esque return to power, Lutz is already doing what he does best: creating headlines by detailing what is planned for GM's product pipeline.
Mere hours after his new position was announced, he reportedly told Automobile magazine that the Pontiac G8 was “too good to waste,” and that it would be imported to North America as a Chevrolet Caprice after new Pontiac vehicles are no longer sold by the end of 2009.
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