2004 Nissan 350z Touring Coupe 2-door 3.5l Custom on 2040-cars

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Nissan IDX sports coupe future increasingly cloudy [w/poll]

There's a strong desire among enthusiasts for more inexpensive, lightweight, fun-to-drive, rear-wheel-drive cars to exist in a world that contrasts sharply with automakers' desire to make money. While we all love the feeling of controlling the back end with the throttle, front-wheel drive is king when it comes to affordable cars. One of the future bright spots in the rear-drive market appeared to come from Nissan with its pair of IDx concepts. The two showcars from the 2013 Tokyo Motor Show took liberal design inspiration from the classic Datsun 510 and mixed it with modern powertrains in very attractive little packages. However, some pretty dark clouds are reportedly now hanging over the project.
Last we heard, a production version was supposedly "in the plan" from the Japanese automaker, but its trajectory may have changed inside the company in the last few months. According to Pierre Loing, vice president of product planning for Nissan Americas, the issue is making the sports coupe profitable. While Nissan has access to rear-wheel drive platforms, they are all meant for more premium vehicles (read: they cost too much). Assuming around 60,000 annual sales, Loing tells Ward's Auto that making a dedicated chassis for the IDx just isn't a moneymaker. If the car still does see production, it'll be after 2016, he says.
The decision whether to build the IDx has been teetering for a while. Nissan spokesperson Dan Bedore previously told Autoblog that the coupe would need a groundswell of support from consumers and enthusiasts if is to actually have a shot at production. If you are among the hopeful looking to see this affordable, rear-drive performance car in showrooms, get some friends together and start letting Nissan know that you actually want it - you can start here by adding a Comment and voting in our poll, because we're going to send the results on to 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.

Nissan reports $4.13B net income for 2012

The news for Nissan is good when it comes to the company's results for the 2012 financial year that ended on March 31. Even though the numbers were down in many of the world's major markets, increased sales in the US, Brazil and the Middle East, ten new models and a strong fourth quarter allowed Nissan to hit its target for the year and notch record sales of 4.914 million units globally. On net revenue of $116 billion, Nissan posted net income of $4.13 billion and an operating profit of $6.31 billion.
There are upward-looking projections for this year, Nissan forecasting a 7.8-percent jump in sales to 5.3 million units, with $117.89 billion in net revenue and $4.42 billion in net income. That net revenue number probably won't actually match what's reported next year, though, because Nissan is changing its accounting method and won't include revenue and operating profit results from its joint venture with China's Dongfeng. Net income doesn't change under the new method, but the adjusted net revenue forecast is $109.16 billion.
There's a press release and two videos below with more details for those of you who go gaga for annual reports.