2011 Nissan Maxima Sv on 2040-cars

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Nissan Bladeglider now on the backburner

There have been some big shakeups within Nissan's top executive ranks in the past 12 months, including Johan de Nyscchen leaving Infiniti to run Cadillac and Andy Palmer taking over Aston Martin. With them gone, the automaker's future product portfolio looks to be shifting as well. Among them, the chances are dwindling for the BladeGlider to actually arrive in dealers – already a rumored possibility. New Nissan planning boss Philippe Klein isn't nearly as hot on the idea of the BladeGlider as his predecessors. Where Palmer said last year the vehicle was in the brand's mid-term plan, Klein recently told Autocar that the model was "not among the immediate priorities." He didn't slam the door entirely on potential production, though. "It is still on the table, but at the end of the day it has to make sense to the company." Debuting at the 2013 Tokyo Motor Show, the BladeGlider translated the narrow-front, wide-rear wedge shape of the Deltawing and ZEOD RC racers to the street. In concept form, it used an electric drivetrain with hub-mounted motors, and the driver sat in the center with two passengers flanking them to the rear. According to Autocar, the project to develop a production version got at least as far as creating test cars from Ariel Atoms. The BladeGlider's renegade styling hasn't been the only thing holding it back from seeing the road, though. Panoz has a pending lawsuit against Nissan that claims the styling for the Nissan ZEOD RC and the BladeGlider infringe on the intellectual property for the Deltawing's design.

Nissan Titan Truckumentary looks back through the brand's trucks [w/video]

In a prologue last month, Nissan promised us more of its Titan Truckumentary in December, and here it is. This is a set-the-stage episode, surveying the brand's truck history in the US from the 1960 Datsun 1200, one of the first vehicles it sold here, to the first truck it manufactured here in 1983 in Smyrna, TN, to the nineties Hardbody and the 1999 SUT Concept, among others. Pickup-truck-lifer Brent Hagan, the product planner for the next-generation Titan - designed and engineered in the US - is our tour guide for this episode. If anything, after watching this video all we could think was, "Nissan, please bring back the good old days."

Nissan's big price cuts threatening others' profits

Bloomberg reports Nissan may be keeping the competition up at night even more than normal. The Japanese automaker recently cut prices on seven of its models and bolstered incentive offerings in an attempt to gain market share in the US, and the strategy is working. Last month saw the company's sales leap by 25 percent, which is nearly triple the industry average. Nissan is currently taking advantage of the weak yen - Japanese currency has fallen by 15 percent against the dollar, which has given the automaker around $1,500 per car to use to either add features or cut prices. Some analysts are calling the policy "scorched earth."
Meanwhile, American automakers like Ford, General Motors and Chrysler are doing their best to keep from sliding back into old bad habits. The Detroit Three have steadily moved away from a discount and incentive strategy to bring in new buyers since the 2009 recession. Those short-sighted tactics helped paved the way for bankruptcy at both GM and Chrysler. As Bloomberg reports, the resolve to stay away from big discounts may falter if Toyota begins using similar tactics.