2012 Nissan Sentra 2.0 Sr on 2040-cars

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Nissan Cube dead for 2015

Another class cut-up has graduated from our motor pool. The Nissan Cube's indefatigable weirdness was likely both its chief selling point and its Achilles Heel, but Autoblog sources say that after a six-year run in the US, the niche player has been scrubbed from the Japanese automaker's lineup.
The move is hardly unexpected - there was confirmation from Nissan Canada that it was pulling the plug on the asymmetric little front-driver in its market back in May, and sales have not exactly been sparkling here in the States, either. In June, Nissan shifted just 336 Cubes, down 23.8 percent year over year. So far this year, Nissan has sold 2,294 units, a sales pace off 30.9 percent versus 2013. At its peak in 2010, the Cube remained firmly a niche vehicle, selling 22,968 units.
Nissan North America's Dan Passe, senior manager of product communications, maintains that "We are continuing to sell the 2014 Cube and we haven't made an announcement about future model plans," but Autoblog sources indicate that an official announcement will be coming in the next couple of months, and the Cube has been conspicuously left off of an exhaustive 2015 lineup "Charting the Changes" announcement released on Tuesday.

Nissan expands regional airbag recall to 45k Sentras [UPDATE]

UPDATE: Nissan's official statement about this recall expansion has been added below. Nissan is expanding its regional Takata airbag inflator recall for the passenger side of an estimated 45,000 Sentras from the 2004-2006 model years in high-humidity states. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has not yet published the specifics of the broadened campaign, but Nissan spokesperson Steve Yaeger told Autoblog that the company submitted a Defect Incident Report to the agency yesterday, April 16. According to Reuters, the expansion followed a case in March where a women in Louisiana was injured by a ruptured airbag in a 2006 Sentra. Yaeger clarified this to Autoblog via email by stating, "This action is not in response to lawsuit filed yesterday. [The] recall was initiated before that came to light." As required under the law, affected owners should be notified within the next 60 days, he indicated. Nissan was already recalling nearly 700,000 vehicles for the faulty inflators. While millions of owners from multiple automakers were affected by the potentially dangerous parts last year, the safety campaigns haven't quite finished yet. Honda expanded its own nationwide campaign to add 100,000 more units in March. Related Video: Nissan Statement Based on new field information and in consultation with NHTSA, Nissan Group is taking further action to expand the previously announced Takata Inflator Regional Recall to include additional Model Year 2004-2006 Nissan Sentra vehicles in the affected areas of the U.S. and its territories. If you receive a recall letter please take your vehicle to a Nissan dealership to have the recall work performed at no cost. The company urges anyone who owns any vehicle that is potentially affected by the Takata's recalls to enter their vehicle's identification number (VIN) on NHTSA's site https://vinrcl.safercar.gov/vin/ or Nissan USA and Infiniti USA web sites. The web sites will be updated with newly affected vehicles in approximately two weeks. Nissan and Infiniti are committed to a high level of customer safety, service and satisfaction and are working with NHTSA, Takata and our dealers to promptly address this issue.

Watch Nissan's autonomous Leaf in action

Getting its semi-autonomous Leaf legalized in Japan was just the first step. Now, Nissan is giving demonstrations of what its fully autonomous car is capable of at this year's Combined Exhibition of Advanced Technologies (CEATEC) show - Japan's equivalent to America's Consumer Electronics Show. To show off the possibilities of its technologies, Nissan had an oval track set up at the show giving rides in an autonomous Leaf to the media. Even Nissan CEO Carlos Ghosn and Toyota CEO Akio Toyodo caught a ride.
Nissan has since released a couple videos of its CEATEC demos, with one designed to look like a news report. In this video, you can watch the car go around the track and navigate intersections and road hazards. The second video shows Ghosn riding in the car, and he hints that Nissan's goal of having an autonomous vehicle in production by 2020 might be more of a worst-case scenario. Watch both videos and read through Nissan's official press release below.