Nissan NZ mum on Ariya’s potential

Nissan has unveiled its first electric sports utility

ENTERING production next year, with no word yet on where New Zealand sits in distribution planning – that’s Japan’s first mass produced fully-electric sports utility, the Nissan Ariya, unveiled online in its production format today.

Retaining the bold Blade Runner-esque styling of the concept unveiled at the 2019 Tokyo Motor Show and the first product to sit atop the Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi Alliance’s CMF-EV electric architecture that will be used by all partner brands, the Ariya also showcases a new brand identity for Nissan.

However, for electric vehicle buffs, there are more important factors to consider for a vehicle set to sit above the LEAF, which has become a firm New Zealand favourite – this country’s highest volume EV, albeit on the strength of its popularity as a Japanese used import. 

Ariya’s also heading for the big time; crossovers are hot and Nissan plans their car to provision in five variants, topped by a performance model. 

The lesser models arrive with single motor rear-wheel-drive and the others delivering twin motor four-wheel-drive powertrains, the latter swapping the entry 63kWh lithium ion battery for a 87kWh unit.

The 63kWh single motor model will offer 160kW/300Nm and a range of around 450 kilometres in its most modest format.

The 87kWh edition is enabled for 178kW/300Nm, a range of at least 500kms and – if in rear-drive - 610kms, 0-100kmh in 7.5 seconds and a top speed of 160kmh as standard.

There’s also an e-4orce flagship that packs more punch – 389kW and 600Nm – and extra pep: Zero to 100kmh in 5.1 s and top speed of 200kmh. Range for that one drops to 400kms. All those estimates are from Nissan. The WLTP figures have yet to be provisioned. 

All models have an on-board 130W fast-charging inverter that can top up 375km (80 percent of the smallest battery’s lowest range) in 30 minutes. 

Ariya adopts standard, sport and eco modes, with e-Force models adding a snow function. It also uses the Leaf’s e-Pedal regeneration set-up, allowing one pedal driving. And some variants will take Nissan’s Pro Pilot 2.0, which allows for hands-free driving in some circumstances. It relies on more than 20 sensors such as cameras, radar and ultrasonic components. 

At 4595mm long, 1850mm wide and 1655mm tall, the Ariya is relatively compact, but it has a 2775mm wheelbase and the absence of a transmission tunnel plus some clever stowage ideas will enhance interior space. The entry rear-drive car’s boot offers 466-litres’ capacity; editions with the 87kWh battery have 58 litres’ less space. Still, what helps is that the battery is a flat pack, which allows the vehicle to have a completely flat floor.

The interior features a high-tech interior, with almost no buttons or knobs, and aims to deliver a premium feel. Many touch controls are neatly integrated into the timber fascia that runs across the dash and are handled through "capacitive haptic touch-sensitive icons that light up on the dashboard.

Nissan has also freed up space by removing the air conditioning equipment from the cabin. It’s located under the bonnet instead because … well, no engine, right? 

Nissan claims Ariya is expected to represent a new electrified brand identity – “blazing a path to an era of advanced electrification, interior layout, and seamless vehicle intelligence.” 

Led by Senior Vice President of Global Design Alfonso Albaisa, Executive Design Director Satoru Tai and Senior Design Director Giovanny Arroba, Nissan’s designers worked from the beginning to lend a Japanese identity.

“We wanted to ensure that the soul of the vehicle reflect our distinctive Japanese DNA, conveyed in a simple, yet powerfully modern manner,” Albaisa said. “We dubbed this ‘Timeless Japanese Futurism’ and tapped into key Japanese words to inspire our global design team to produce the Ariya’s ultra-sleek, seamless, sharp and powerful form.”

Example? The grille has a large sunken area with a subtle pattern that's supposed to resemble a traditional Japanese kumiko design.

Next-gen Navara by Nismo?

Resident artist Josh Byrnes imagines Nissan’s next one-tonner as a hybridised Ranger Raptor rival … would the Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi alliance allow it to happen?

EXTRAORDINARY times require unprecedented measures.

Covid-19 has thrown the world into economic turmoil affecting just about every sector you could think of - the automotive industry included.

The downturn in new vehicle sales here and abroad has seen a tightening of the purse strings disrupting many new vehicle programmes, from delays to the complete axing of planned vehicle redesigns.

In Nissan’s case, the Corona curse appears to have poured more salt onto a pre-existing wound. The Japanese carmaker was struggling before the pandemic, and further rationing of their product portfolio was announced on May 4.

The Nissan-Renault-Mitsubishi ambition now is to leverage each member's strength (for instance, Nissan will take the lead in autonomous driving, while Renault will do so for connected-car technologies).

Also, each alliance member will be the reference for particular regions where it has particular status. So, Nissan will lead the China, North America and Japan regions. Renault will be the reference for Europe, Russia, South America and North Africa. Mitsubishi, meantime, will be the reference for the Asean and Oceania regions.

So, there’s that. Then there’s the bit that we’re a little nervous about. Cost-cutting is coming. Big cost-cutting. To achieve new targets, the companies say close to 50 percent of their models will be developed and produced under a so-called leader-follower arrangement by 2025.

The implication for the one-tonne ute sector could be massive. It seems to means the upcoming Navara replacement could well be based off Mitsubishi’s next Triton, to the point of becoming an exercise in badge-engineering.

That is, a common vehicle with lightly-altered front and rear ends. Everything else will mostly be the same as its Mitsubishi donor vehicle …even the often criticised Nissan-based Mercedes-Benz X-Class programme had more creative freedom.

However, what if Nissan had the complete free rein over the design and development - what could the Navara look like, and what else could we expect?

Our in-house illustrated study envisions the next Navara in Ranger Raptor-fighting ‘Nismo’ specification. So, cue all the necessary off-road bits; raised ground clearance? Check. Pumped wheel arch flares? That too. Giant wheels, likewise. And to top it all off …an in-your-face front-end that wouldn’t look out of place amongst a fleet of military vehicles.

Unlike Nissan’s recently-added Navara N-Trek Warrior variant, upgrades would go beyond just simple suspension tuning and visual add-ons. Here the frame would be strengthened, aided by off-road shock absorbers helping it to endure any punishment thrown its way.

While its Ranger Raptor rival is a tad underdone in the engine compartment; this study ditches diesel and puts aside any powertrain mediocrity by utilising a plug-in hybrid (PHEV) shared with Mitsubishi’s next-generation Outlander SUV. 

This setup employs a new 2.4-litre four-cylinder engine with 94 kW coupled to dual electric motors (one on each axle) producing 69 kW. In this application, the improved range comes from a larger 13.8-kilowatt-hour battery pack. In the Navara, this would be ideal for low-speed off-roading with prodigious amounts of low-down torque.

Diesel power will still feature for core volume-selling models and a myriad of variants in single, king and dual cab configurations will be available in both rear-drive and four-wheel-drive formats.

A full redesign of Nissan New Zealand’s most popular model is tipped to land sometime within the next 24 months as an MY2022 model.

Will it look anything like this rendering?

here’s one they do now … the Navara N-trek

Nissan plans bring pain and joy

Plant closures, more platform-sharing with Mitsubishi and Renault and the potential of a new Z-car … it’s been a big week for Nissan.

Navara’s ambitions are presently headed by the just-released N-Trek.

COMING in the wake of Nissan identifying readiness for a new product onslaught that could include a new-generation ‘Z’ sports car is determination to slim down spending, in part by closing a plant that has supplied New Zealand.

A factory in Barcelona, Spain, that has been a supply point for the Navara utility appears to be the biggest victim of the maker’s determination to cut global production by 20 percent. 

Nissan’s overnight signal that it intends to close the factory by December has triggered worker protests and a response from Spain’s government, which is asking for a reconsideration on grounds that it will cause considerable unemployment and hit the national economy hard. In addition to the 3000 factory positions, 20,000 more jobs in the brand’s supply chain in Spain are also at risk.

The full extent of impact on our market remains unclear. Current Navara also sources out of Thailand, is nearing production life and odds of it being developed off the next-generation Mitsubishi Triton seem to have strengthened with another announcement this week confirming that platform-sharing between the Japanese firms and their other partner, Renault, will intensify.

This to the point, some onlookers say, that an effort to slash model investment costs by up to 40 percent will inevitably mean some crucial forthcoming models such as next-generation utes and SUVs will become badge engineering exercises.

The three makers have acknowledged implications of their “leader-follower” vehicle strategy discussed this week will be significant.

A core ideal of a new co-operation business model is that it green lights the current “standardisation strategy” evolving from the platform sharing that occurs now to common adoption of upper bodies: So, effectively, no more styling divergence to create individual identities but instead lookalikes differentiated at best by modest design revisions and, at worst, by badges alone.

The potential for this seems high given the alliance has also said that, going forward, responsibility for product development and regional priorities will go to a single brand.

Mitsubishi has been saying for some years that it has been in the box seat for being the home base for a future ute, as current Triton presents as a far more cost-effective vehicle to build and sell than the Navara.

Any cloning is unlikely to stop with the ute. It’s highly certain the next-generation Mitsubishi Outlander, Nissan X-Trail and Renault Koleos mid-size SUVs will come off a new Nissan-developed platform. Mitsubishi already has a rebadged version of the Renault Trafic van.

Closing the plant in Spain (and another in Indonesia) is in response to Nissan sinking into the red for the first time in 11 years as the coronavirus pandemic squashed global demand and disrupted production.

In announcing the closures, the maker has also reiterated that its biggest plant, the Sunderland facility in the United Kingdom that supplies the new Juke that releases here soon, is not going to be touched. In fact, Sunderland’s status will be elevated as the centre of all future production for Europe.

Nonetheless, with global vehicle production having dropped 62 percent in April from a year earlier to 150,388 vehicles and global vehicle sales slipping nearly 42 percent last month, Nissan is having to move fast and decisively.

It also determined today to reduce the number of its models and focusing on certain geographic areas, such as Japan, China and the United States, to enhance its efficiency and profitability, rather than chasing sales size.

Nissan has spent much of the past year seeking to recover from the November 2018 arrest of its former chairman, Carlos Ghosn, over financial misconduct allegations, including under-reporting future compensation and misusing Nissan money.

The company’s management appeared to be in disarray after the sudden departure of Ghosn, who was sent by Renault to help Nissan recover from near-bankruptcy in 1999.

Ghosn’s successor, Hiroto Saikawa, also ended up resigning amid allegations about dubious income.

Amidst all this, Nissan this week also released the future model teaser video (above) that suggests it has a replacement for the 370Z sports car. 

What media have immediately tagged the ‘400Z’ is expected to be remodelled on the same platform as the 370Z and the video suggests it follows the same styling path as its predecessors. The especially eagle-eyed have identified that the headlights appear to be circular – a nod to the original 240Z, it’s conjected.

The engine will be a 3.0-litre twin-turbo V6, producing 298kW (400hp, hence the 400Z name), and 475Nm through an automatic transmission to the rear wheels. 

Other new additions include refitting of the original ‘Z’ badge to the rear quarter panel like the old models have and, in its home market, the Fairlady nameplate is to continue.

Ute outlook: Part 2 – the big team

Our national obsession for utilities, especially family-minded dual-cabs, knows no bounds. The market is booming at the moment, and filled with plenty of strong options. Yet surely you’re also keen to know something about what’s coming up next, when and from whom? Here’s part two of our three-part analysis.

Are you ready for Renaut’s Oroch Duster?

THE Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi Alliance is a massive strategic partnership that currently produces better than 10 per cent of all the world’s new vehicles.

That’s a lot of vehicles – close to 11 million a year, in fact – so it makes sense that the alliance has various technology-sharing agreements in place to take advantage of economies of scale. Such as sharing platforms and powertrains for its next generation of vehicles, for instance.

When it comes to one-tonne utes, the first brand-new model to emerge from the Alliance is going to be the Mitsubishi Triton. And a likely special feature of the model, which will probably be launched in 2022, will that it will be electrified.

Probably not pure electric though – that would be a step too far, given the traditional towing and 4WD rock-hopping needs of utes.  But it is known that research is progressing into whether the Triton will become available as a petrol-electric hybrid or as a PHEV.

Triton is a vitally important model for Mitsubishi. It’s the brand’s second-biggest selling vehicle worldwide behind the Outlander, with close to 200,000 annual sales. In New Zealand it is the biggest-selling Mitsubishi by a country mile – last year 5319 of them were registered, close to double the number of Outlander sales.

Current generation Triton has done Mitsubishi proud.

So in every respect it is important that the new Triton continues the model’s great reputation – and potentially  enhance it via the Mitsubishi becoming the first ute manufacturer to add electrification to its lineup.

Mitsubishi has been investigating the feasibility of a hybrid ute for some years now, and in fact it revealed such a vehicle – a diesel-electric concept called GR-HEV – back in 2013 at the Geneva Motor Show.

While there was no updated concept ute at the Tokyo Motor Show late last year, it was made clear a brand-new Triton is under development – and that Mitsubishi will be the first member of the Alliance to produce it.

Said the company’s chief operating officer Ashwai Gupta at a media briefing: “It’s a matter of each brand’s business decision as to when they will launch (a new ute), but as far as Mitsubishi is concerned...we are going ahead with development of a Triton successor.”

Mitsubishi has already achieve big sales success with its Outlander PHEV, so it is obvious that this plug-in technology is one that the brand is now considering for light commercial use. But it may well be that a more traditional series or parallel hybrid system will be chosen.

Next ute off the Alliance rank will be the Nissan Navara, which is also likely to be offered with the choice of an electrified version. But as with Mitsubishi, no decision has been made on which direction this electrification will take.

The new Navara will probably arrive in 2022. The current model has already received a final refresh, and the New Zealand lineup has just been bolstered via arrival of a version called N-Trek Warrior which was developed by Australian firm Premcar.

N-Trek edition is expected to lift current Navara’s status

In New Zealand, Navara is the most popular Nissan, with its 3305 sales last year beating both the Qashqai and X-Trail SUVs.

At Tokyo last year, the brand’s global head of light commercial vehicles Francois Bailley said for Nissan to consider any form of electrified power, a ute must be able to deliver power, torque and towing abilities.

“We’re looking at different technologies, from full EV to PHEV and so on. But we don’t think our customers will tolerate any compromise in terms of towing, payload, range. We must supply the same capabilities as the internal combustion models.”

Interestingly though, Nissan has already produced an electric ute.  Nissan-Dongfeng, which is a 50:50 joint venture in China, last year launch a new ute called Rich 6, which is based on the Navara and offers the equivalent of about 120kW and 420Nm.

Renault, the third member of the Alliance, already sells two utes on various interenational markets – the Navara-based Alaskan, and a small half-tonne ute called Oroch that is built off a compact SUV called Duster.

Renault New Zealand has been banging on for some years now that it intends importing the Alaskan, but it’s never happened.  Now it is more likely that if a Renault one-tonne ute does enter the Kiwi market, it will now be a brand-new model based off the new Triton.

It also seems likely the Oroch will get here before that. Renault NZ has confirmed that the Duster will arrive in New Zealand during the fourth quarter of this year, and there is talk that the ute version will arrive soon after.

And what about the Mercedes-Benz X-Class? Will a second generation of that ute, which is currently built off the Navara and assembled alongside Navara and Alaskan in Spain, also be built off the new Triton? Or will there be another X-Class at all?

The answer is no.  Mercedes-Benz has been badly burned by being the first luxury manufacturer to enter the world of the one-tonne ute – and as a result ithas announced that X-Class will be axed from the end of this month.

In a statement, the brand simply said: “In our global product portfolio, the X-Class is a niche product which plays a great role in a few markets.” In other words, It hasn’t been selling in anywhere near sufficient numbers – so is being dumped.