2002 Mitsubishi Eclipse Gt Coupe 2-door 3.0l on 2040-cars

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Nissan shares slide 5% after report Renault exploring stake reduction

TOKYO — Shares of Nissan Motor Co slumped 5% on Monday, their biggest fall in more than a month, following a report that top shareholder Renault may consider lowering its stake in the Japanese automaker. Bloomberg reported on Friday that Renault may consider lowering its Nissan shareholding as part of plans to separate its electric vehicle business. The French car maker has been pushing ahead with plans to split its electric and combustion-engine businesses in an attempt to catch rivals such as Tesla and Volkswagen On Friday, Renault said all options were on the table for separating the electric vehicle business, including a possible public listing in the second half of 2023. Any plans would be subject to approval from alliance partner Nissan, Renault finance chief Thierry Pieton said, adding the Japanese automaker was "in the loop" as Renault weighed up its options. Renault and Nissan have declined to comment on the report. Shares of Nissan fell to 509.8 yen in Tokyo, marking their biggest one-day decline since early March and underperforming an almost 2% drop in the Nikkei index. The car makers' two-decade-old alliance, which includes Mitsubishi Motors, was rocked by the 2018 ouster of alliance founder Carlos Ghosn amid a financial scandal. They have since pledged to pool more resources. In January they said they would work more closely together to make electric cars. They detailed a $26 billion investment plan for the next five years. But their unequal relationship has long been a source of friction in Japan. Renault owns 43.4% of Nissan, which in turn has a 15% non-voting stake in its shareholder. Renault bailed out Nissan two decades ago, but is now the smaller automaker by sales. Related video: This content is hosted by a third party. To view it, please update your privacy preferences. Manage Settings. Earnings/Financials Green Mitsubishi Nissan Renault

A car writer's year in new vehicles [w/video]

Christmas is only a week away. The New Year is just around the corner. As 2014 draws to a close, I'm not the only one taking stock of the year that's we're almost shut of. Depending on who you are or what you do, the end of the year can bring to mind tax bills, school semesters or scheduling dental appointments. For me, for the last eight or nine years, at least a small part of this transitory time is occupied with recalling the cars I've driven over the preceding 12 months. Since I started writing about and reviewing cars in 2006, I've done an uneven job of tracking every vehicle I've been in, each year. Last year I made a resolution to be better about it, and the result is a spreadsheet with model names, dates, notes and some basic facts and figures. Armed with this basic data and a yen for year-end stories, I figured it would be interesting to parse the figures and quantify my year in cars in a way I'd never done before. The results are, well, they're a little bizarre, honestly. And I think they'll affect how I approach this gig in 2015. {C} My tally for the year is 68 cars, as of this writing. Before the calendar flips to 2015 it'll be as high as 73. Let me give you a tiny bit of background about how automotive journalists typically get cars to test. There are basically two pools of vehicles I drive on a regular basis: media fleet vehicles and those available on "first drive" programs. The latter group is pretty self-explanatory. Journalists are gathered in one location (sometimes local, sometimes far-flung) with a new model(s), there's usually a day of driving, then we report back to you with our impressions. Media fleet vehicles are different. These are distributed to publications and individual journalists far and wide, and the test period goes from a few days to a week or more. Whereas first drives almost always result in a piece of review content, fleet loans only sometimes do. Other times they serve to give context about brands, segments, technology and the like, to editors and writers. So, adding up the loans I've had out of the press fleet and things I've driven at events, my tally for the year is 68 cars, as of this writing. Before the calendar flips to 2015, it'll be as high as 73. At one of the buff books like Car and Driver or Motor Trend, reviewers might rotate through five cars a week, or more. I know that number sounds high, but as best I can tell, it's pretty average for the full-time professionals in this business.

California adapts ZEV mandate with PHEVs for smaller automakers

California is the nation's largest market for zero-emissions vehicles with over 100,000 of them estimated to be on the roads there. The state's goal is to keep that number growing every year. To that end, the California Air Resources Board is now tweaking its rules in a way that might not boost ZEVs but could mean more plug-in hybrids for the Golden State. Jaguar Land Rover, Mazda, Mitsubishi, Subaru, and Volvo asked for an exemption to the state's zero-emissions vehicle mandate last year due to their relatively small development budgets compared to larger automakers. CARB denied their request but did craft a compromise, according to Automotive News. Rather than being required to offer a ZEV in the state, companies with an annual global revenue of less than $40 billion, like those in this group, may instead sell plug-in hybrids to earn ZEV credits. The companies aren't completely off the hook, though. If these plug-in hybrids don't earn enough credits, the corporations must buy them on the market to make up the difference. Automakers with popular electric models like Nissan and Tesla have made a big business through this trading system by selling their surplus to rivals. Tesla alone pocketed $51 million in the first quarter from this part of its business, according to Automotive News. The changes to the regulations also aren't set in stone, yet. CARB is meeting in 2016 and could adjust things further at that time. Related Video: News Source: Automotive News - sub. req. via Hybrid CarsImage Credit: Justin Sullivan / Getty Images Government/Legal Green Jaguar Land Rover Mazda Mitsubishi Subaru Volvo Emissions Electric Hybrid California zev credits zero emissions vehicle