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Nissan Rogue gives brand rare monthly sales lead over Honda

The five top-selling brands in the automotive industry are usually Ford, Toyota, Chevy, Honda and Nissan, in that order. This lineup emerged intact when counting a year's worth of sales for 2013, and there was no reason to expect it would change at the beginning of 2014. But it did. Thanks to surging sales of its all-new Rogue, Nissan managed to pull ahead of Honda to become the fourth best-selling auto brand in January 2014, selling 81,472 units (an increase of 10.41 percent compared to January 2013) to Honda's 80,808 (a decrease of 3.96 percent).
The Rogue led the way for Nissan, contributing an additional 4,880 units in January compared to the same month last year - a 54.5-percent increase for a grand total of 13,831 units. But the Rogue had help, with the Frontier pickup adding an extra 2,307 units (an 87.9-percent increase), the Juke an extra 1,081 units (a 45.8-percent increase), the Altima an extra 1,051 units (a 4.9-percent increase) and the Maxima an additional 983 units (a 32.9-percent increase). Honda, meanwhile, was hurt by falling sales of the Accord (down 13.9 percent) and Pilot (down 7.6 percent), and stagnant sales of the Civic.
Honda, however, should take pride in the fact that it's luxury division, Acura, outsold Infiniti, Nissan's luxury division, last month - 10,823 units sold to 8,998. That margin of victory was large enough to keep the parent company of American Honda ahead of Nissan North America for the month of January.

Nissan bringing GT-R LM Nismo back to WEC

Things didn't go exactly as planned when Nissan entered Le Mans this year with the GT-R LM Nismo. First years of a new racing program seldom do. But the radical front-drive LMP1 prototype performed so poorly that it looked for a while like Nissan would scrap the program altogether. Fortunately, however, the Japanese automaker has announced that the GT-R LM Nismo it is coming back. Several changes are afoot for next season. For starters, while the prototype only competed in the 24 Hours of Le Mans this year, Nissan says it "will return to race in the FIA World Endurance Championship in 2016" – of which Le Mans is just part. It isn't saying how many of the races it will contest, exactly, but the calendar currently consists of nine events: Silverstone, Spa, Le Mans, the Nurburgring, Mexico City, Texas, Fuji, Shanghai, and Bahrain. Hopefully we'll be seeing the Nissan team at all nine events, especially the one at the Circuit of the Americas in Austin, where it can be seen undergoing testing in the fresh and massive image gallery above. Schedules aside, Nissan has appointed a new principal to run the team. Brought in "to share the heavy load on Ben Bowlby's shoulders" will be Mike Carcamo, who moves from his job at Nissan Mexico to serve as the WEC team principal. Outgoing principal Bowlby does, however, appear to be staying on in an as-yet undisclosed capacity. Finally, Nissan says that "multiple changes have been made to the car since Le Mans," and you can bet that's a huge understatement. We won't know what those changes constitute, exactly, but the automaker is certainly hoping that they'll prove enough to make the car competitive. In its debut at Le Mans this year, two of the three cars failed to finish, and the third wasn't classified since it didn't cover enough distance. Related Video: NISSAN GT-R LM NISMO TO MAKE RACING RETURN IN 2016 Nissan's innovative LM P1 racer to complete test programme before returning to WEC YOKOHAMA, JAPAN - 1 October 2015: Nissan today announced that the innovative Nissan GT-R LM NISMO will return to race in the FIA World Endurance Championship in 2016. The team has been working hard to address the technical issues faced at Le Mans in June and is in the middle of a comprehensive test and development programme to prepare the new car to race against the tough competition it faces in the LM P1 class.

Mitsubishi could use Lancer Sportback name on its version of the Nissan Leaf

Various reports might help with filling in some of the blanks in Mitsubishi's Momentum 2030 plan. That's the automaker's new initiative we heard about last month that Mitsubishi North America President and CEO Mark Chaffin said is "setting the stage for new powertrains and vehicles being introduced, new dealerships being opened, and new technologies being developed to make the shopping and ownership experience faster, easier and more enjoyable." The first hints of new product suggested a rugged plug-in hybrid van, something else in the Subaru Outback segment, and perhaps an electric pickup. And after Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi alliance partner Nissan introduces a new-generation Leaf EV for the 2026 model year, Mitsubishi's supposed to get the Leaf for its own use. Based on a recent trademark renewal, Australian outlet Which Car? via Car and Driver suspects this EV (highlighted in the image above) could be called Lancer Sportback.  Car and Driver caught the fact that Mitsubishi renewed a trademark application for the name Lancer Sportback at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office on March 12 of this year. And speaking of Lancers, the Japanese automaker applied to trademark Lancer Evolution on August 8 last year. The USPTO refused the registration, Mitsubishi filed an appeal that's still under consideration.    Which Car? doesn't say why it believes Mitsu might apply the Lancer (requested in 2020) or Lancer Sportback name to its little EV, but notes that the automaker's been reusing names around the world of late, such as Airtrek, Colt, Eclipse, and Eclipse Cross. There's more where that came from for us, C/D also tabbing Mitsubishi's trademark application for the name Montero, submitted last August and approved in February. That 4x4 launched as the Pajero in 1981 and sold in the U.S. as the Montero (and the Dodge Raider). The carmaker hasn't sold a Montero here since 2006, and ended Pajero production in 2021. A new model called the Pajero Sport filled the gap in the lineup, but that SUV is based on Mitsubishi's Triton pickup sold in overseas markets.  We've got a while to wait to figure out what's up. The new Leaf is expected to be a mini Nissan Ariya based on Nissan's Chill-Out concept from last year's Tokyo Mobility Show. The image above is from the Momentum 2030 announcement, the little crossover we've highlighted has a DRL signature that fits the form factor.