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Ken Block's Gymkhana 8 to feature Dubai Police cars?

Yesterday we showed you the shiny Ford Fiesta that Ken Block will slide, spin, and hoon through the next Gymkhana video. In case the image above isn't clear, that video will drop at midnight EST on February 30th on the Ford Performance YouTube channel. We don't know all the entire premise of the video yet, but this Tweet from the man himself reveals that the video will be set in Dubai. Block is standing on the Fiesta we saw yesterday, and arrayed behind him are a handful of those famous Dubai Police cars you're probably familiar with. The force has a fleet of sportscars and supercars, and the purpose is outreach and goodwill among its citizenry, not necessarily the pursuit of criminals. This content is hosted by a third party. To view it, please update your privacy preferences. Manage Settings. From left to right, we can see a Maserati GranTurismo, Porsche 911, what looks to be a Nissan GT-R obscured by Block's Fiesta, a McLaren (likely a 650S), Ford Mustang, and a Ferrari 599 of some ilk. Will they take part? Maybe Block will try and run from what might be the most horsepower-intensive police fleet in the world. We'll have answers (and a few minutes of pure Block hooniganism) in a few days. Related Video:

Nissan alters all CVTs to act less like a stretched rubberband

Among automotive enthusiasts, no one seems to hold a neutral opinion when it comes to continuously variable transmissions. CVTs are either praised for their ability to boost fuel economy or chided for their occasionally poor driving dynamics. Nissan is among the masters of these un-shifting gearboxes in the US, and it uses them in many vehicles in its lineup. However, for the 2015 model year, several models are getting a software update to make their CVTs a bit more like a conventional automatic.
To give drivers the option of feeling gearshifts while on the road, Nissan is adding its D-Step Shift Logic feature to the CVTs in multiple vehicles. Steve Powers, Nissan's senior manager of powertrain performance, told Autoblog the system forces the transmission to "hold a ratio and then shift" to simulate the way that a traditional automatic would. It's simply a change in software, but the company "can't do it to older CVTs," he said, because it would require changes to transmission logic, as well. According to Automotive News, the upgrade is coming to the 2015 Versa, Versa Note (pictured above), Sentra, V6-equipped Altima, Pathfinder and Quest. "We're rolling it out to all programs," said Powers.
Interestingly, buyer perception appears to be pushing the upgrade. John Curl, a Nissan North America regional product manager, told Automotive News that the decision to add the tech partially comes because some owners are bothered that the CVTs aren't changing gears. According to Powers, D-Step "avoids the rubber band feel," that many drivers didn't like. The different sensation of these transmissions seems like something consumers would notice during the test drive, or that the salesperson would inform them about. The same issue cropped up last year when the company was facing customer satisfaction problems among new buyers customers' unfamiliarity with the gearboxes.

Nissan CEO Uchida says he's willing to be fired if turnaround fails

YOKOHAMA — Nissan's new chief executive said on Tuesday he would accept being fired if he fails to turn around Japan's second biggest automaker which is grappling with plunging sales in the aftermath of the scandal surrounding ex-chairman Carlos Ghosn. Makoto Uchida, who took over the top job in December, put his job on the line at the automaker's shareholders' meeting, where he faced demands ranging from cutting executive pay to offering a bounty to bring Ghosn back to Japan after he fled to Lebanon. Nissan's worsening performance has heaped pressure on Uchida, formerly Nissan's China chief who became its third CEO since September, to come up with aggressive steps to revive the company. On Tuesday, Uchida, who was repeatedly heckled by shareholders, said he was ready to face dismissal if he failed to improve profitability at the company, which is on course to post its worst annual operating profit in 11 years. "We will make sure that we steer the company in an effective way so that it is visible in the eyes of viewers. I will commit to this: if the circumstances remain uncertain you can fire me immediately," he said. Uchida, 53, did not give a timeframe for improving Nissan's performance. The new boss must prove to the board he can accelerate cost-cutting and rebuild profits at the 86-year-old Japanese giant, and that he has the right strategy to repair its partnership with France's Renault, sources have told Reuters. Uchida pleaded with shareholders to be patient while he comes up with a plan by May to recover from crumbling profits and a corporate shake-up following Ghosn's arrest in Japan in late 2018 over financial misconduct charges. "If you can be patient a little bit longer, on a day-to-day basis you will be able to sense we are changing," he said. Ahead of the meeting, some shareholders demanded more clarity about Uchida's plan. "I just want to know what the plan for recovery is. At the moment, the share price has dropped again, and the value of the company has plummeted," said a 70-year-old former employee who owns shares in the company. "If this is the situation, part of me thinks that we would be better off with Ghosn ... If we don't get a clearer vision of the path the company is taking, it will be a worry." Nissan's shares are trading around their lowest level in more than a decade following its latest earnings.