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Why 2015 is going to be a huge year for trucks

Nissan chief executive Carlos Ghosn took center stage to introduce the 2016 Titan last week at the Detroit Auto Show. He spoke of the truck's new features, impressive Cummins V8 diesel engine and the extensive amount of time and money required to build a modern, competitive pickup truck. "We have done all of this because we see opportunity – an opportunity in the unmet needs of today's American truck customers," Ghosn said. He was speaking about the Titan, but his thoughts echo the industry's mindset: When it comes to trucks, find an opportunity and attack. Even with CAFE regulations looming and fickle consumer preferences, investing in trucks is a no-brainer for automakers. Some consumers will always need a truck for their job or lifestyle. And some people will always want one, whether they need it or not. With that in mind, here are four reasons why the pickup-truck sector is more important than ever and poised for growth in 2015. View 24 Photos The Nissan Titan Is Back Okay, it never left, but the Titan hadn't been redesigned since its launch in 2003, and Nissan sold more NV200s than Titans in 2014. It's an understatement to say the truck was languishing. That all changes with the 2016 model. The Titan will come in two variants, a traditional fullsize competitor and the Titan XD. The XD will lead the market launch, and it arrives late this year. It's pitched as a "whitespace" offering, Nissan sales and marketing vice president Fred Diaz said. The idea is to offer something in the general size and price range of a fullsize truck, but also have some of the capability of a heavy-duty truck. The XD uses a fully boxed ladder frame, the chassis design from Nissan's commercial division, and the wheelbase is about 20 inches longer than other Titan models. The XD, which Nissan is calling the flagship of the line, will be the only model with the 5.0-liter Cummins turbodiesel V8. It produces 310 horsepower and 555 pound-feet of torque, while being able to tow 12,000 pounds. V6 and V8 gasoline models will also be offered on the Titan XD and the standard, non-XD model. When production ramps up, the Titan will be sold with several cabs, beds and trims. New features include trailer sway control, an integrated trailer brake controller, more storage options in the cabin and even laminated front and rear side glass to reduce outside noise. All of this has given Nissan fresh confidence in an area where it admittedly has been lacking. "We can compete," Diaz told Autoblog.

Autoblog Podcast #317

Mitsubishi Mirage, Toyota thinks of beefing up US production, Marchionne on Alfa, Dart and minivans, Ford Atlas concept, Honda Gear concept
Episode #317 of the Autoblog Podcast is here, and this week, Dan Roth, Jeff Ross and Michael Harley bookend the other podcast topics with a pair from the Montreal Auto Show, the Mitsubishi Mirage and Honda Gear concept, and in between we talk about Toyota building all its US-market cars stateside, Hyundai building a Nurburgring test facility, Sergio Marchionne's latest words about Alfa Romeo, Dodge Dart powertrains and the future of Chrysler vans. Some chatter about the Ford Atlas concept finishes up the meat of the 'cast and then we wrap with your questions. For those of you who hung with us live on our UStream channel, thanks for taking the time. Keep reading for our Q&A module for you to scroll through and follow along, too. Thanks for listening!
Autoblog Podcast #317:

2016: The year of the autonomous-car promise

About half of the news we covered this year related in some way to The Great Autonomous Future, or at least it seemed that way. If you listen to automakers, by 2020 everyone will be driving (riding?) around in self-driving cars. But what will they look like, how will we make the transition from driven to driverless, and how will laws and infrastructure adapt? We got very few answers to those questions, and instead were handed big promises, vague timelines, and a dose of misdirection by automakers. There has been a lot of talk, but we still don't know that much about these proposed vehicles, which are at least three years off. That's half a development cycle in this industry. We generally only start to get an idea of what a company will build about two years before it goes on sale. So instead of concrete information about autonomous cars, 2016 has brought us a lot of promises, many in the form of concept cars. They have popped up from just about every automaker accompanied by the CEO's pledge to deliver a Level 4 autonomous, all-electric model (usually a crossover) in a few years. It's very easy to say that a static design study sitting on a stage will be able to drive itself while projecting a movie on the windshield, but it's another thing entirely to make good on that promise. With a few exceptions, 2016 has been stuck in the promising stage. It's a strange thing, really; automakers are famous for responding with "we don't discuss future product" whenever we ask about models or variants known to be in the pipeline, yet when it comes to self-driving electric wondermobiles, companies have been falling all over themselves to let us know that theirs is coming soon, it'll be oh so great, and, hey, that makes them a mobility company now, not just an automaker. A lot of this is posturing and marketing, showing the public, shareholders, and the rest of the industry that "we're making one, too, we swear!" It has set off a domino effect – once a few companies make the guarantee, the rest feel forced to throw out a grandiose yet vague plan for an unknown future. And indeed there are usually scant details to go along with such announcements – an imprecise mileage estimate here, or a far-off, percentage-based goal there. Instead of useful discussion of future product, we get demonstrations of test mules, announcements of big R&D budgets and new test centers they'll fund, those futuristic concept cars, and, yeah, more promises.