2014 Nissan Armada Sv on 2040-cars

Auto blog

Toyota, Honda, Nissan and more collaborating to increase fuel efficiency

Toyota, Honda, Mazda, Nissan, Subaru, Mitsubishi, Suzuki and Daihatsu have announced an alliance that will see a push to improve fuel economy from both gas-powered and diesel-powered engines by as much as 30 percent before the end of the decade.
The newly assembled Research Association of Automotive Internal Combustion Engines put the roughly $20-million project together, with the Japanese government committing to half the cost while the eight manufacturers will chip in the rest.
According to Automotive News, the automakers will team up and share basic research on internal-combustion engines in a bid to cut costs. Eventually, the results of the research will find its way into a production vehicle, although it's unclear just when we'll see the fruits of this partnership on the road.

GT-R takes on Altima V8 Supercar and Leaf Nismo in Nissan time attack special

One of the support races for the Clipsal 500 V8 Supercar race in Australia was a Nissan showcase in the form of a time attack challenge: at the starting line were the Nissan Leaf Nismo RC, a GT-R and an Altima V8 Supercar. The 80-kilowatt Leaf Nismo RC was given a seven-second head start on the 545-horsepower GT-R and a 26-second lead on the 600-hp Altima V8 Supercar in hopes that it could get around the 3.21-kilometer course first.
Nissan's not afraid to burn the Leaf Nismo RC's rubber at the track, recently letting video series Translogic hit the kerbs, and it's put it up against some competition, having raced a Tesla Roadster - and lost. The odds were a bit better this time, but it wasn't the finish the hosts expected. Now a race commentator, the driver in the GT-R, Neil Crompton, finished on the podium of the Toohey's 1000 race in an R32 GT-R in 1992.
You can watch the hard-fought time attack in the video below. Skip ahead to 3:43 if you just want the action, but Crompton's recap of every driver interview ever is worth a watch at 2:41.

Nissan gives us the business on the art of clay modeling

The team from The Dashboard recently stopped by the Nissan Technical Center in Japan for a look at what exactly goes into creating a full-scale clay model. While automakers have been using clay bucks for decades, designers and engineers are now combining computer renderings and hand-sculpted clay models to determine how a new vehicle will look in our world. Engineers use specially formulated clay kept warm in an oven to bring the body panels to life. They then coat the clay in a thin plastic film to add body color for the final look.
By the time everything is said and done, workers may have hundreds of hours in the model's creation. So, what happens when the company no longer needs the buck? They get scrapped. Someone comes in and dismantles the whole creation. We presume that action is set to the wailing tears of everyone who had a hand in building the model. Check out the video below for a closer look.