Yesterday saw the Associated Press, Agence
France-Press and a Japanese publication
apparently independently reporting Nissan's
plans, but Reuters did not include the mention of
PHEVs, and the company has not yet commented.

http://www.todayonline.com/articles/144405.asp
Nissan to end tie-up in hybrid with Toyota
Posted: 23-Sep-2006 16:05 hrsTime is GMT + 8 hours

Nissan's officials were not immediately available for a comment. — AFP

Rival Japanese carmakers Nissan Motor Co. and
Toyota Motor Corp will end their tie-up in
sharing hybrid car-related technology as Nissan
plans to release its own hybrid models, a report said.
.
Nissan plans to release its independently
produced low-emission and fuel-efficient models
in 2010, the Yomiuri Shimbun newspaper reported, citing unnamed sources.
.
Nissan and Toyota agreed in 2002 to work together
on hybrid vehicle developments in a bid to cut
costs and benefit from each others' know-how.
.
But both Nissan and Toyota came to think that the
necessity of the tie-up has reduced with the
rapid growth of markets for
environmentally-friendly hybrid vehicles, helped
by rising fuel costs reflecting high oil prices, it said.
.
Nissan's new compact car models will be equipped
with a lithium-ion battery system and include a
plug-in hybrid vehicle that can be recharged at home, it said.
.
Rival Japanese carmakers Nissan Motor Co. and
Toyota Motor Corp will end their tie-up in
sharing hybrid car-related technology as Nissan
plans to release its own hybrid models, a report said.
.
Nissan plans to release its independently
produced low-emission and fuel-efficient models
in 2010, the Yomiuri Shimbun newspaper reported, citing unnamed sources.
.
Nissan and Toyota agreed in 2002 to work together
on hybrid vehicle developments in a bid to cut
costs and benefit from each others' know-how.
.
But both Nissan and Toyota came to think that the
necessity of the tie-up has reduced with the
rapid growth of markets for
environmentally-friendly hybrid vehicles, helped
by rising fuel costs reflecting high oil prices, it said.
.
Nissan's new compact car models will be equipped
with a lithium-ion battery system and include a
plug-in hybrid vehicle that can be recharged at home, it said.

http://www.daily-news.ro/article_detail.php?idarticle=30097
Associated Press Report: Nissan, GM capital alliance unlikely

Auto giants Nissan Motor Co. and General Motors
Corp. are unlikely to form a capital alliance, a
newspaper said Saturday. Nissan will also develop
its own fuel-efficient hybrid cars for introduction in 2010, it said.

Japan's largest newspaper, the Yomiuri Shimbun,
quoted unnamed officials as saying Nissan is
unlikely to invest in GM because of reluctance on
the part of the U.S. automaker, whose U.S. sales
have shown signs of a recovery following a restructuring program.

GM's employees and labor union have also voiced
opposition to the possible capital linkup with
the Nissan-Renault group, the report said.

Renault owns a 44 percent stake in Nissan, which
in turn holds 15 percent of the French automaker.
Nissan-Renault started talks with GM earlier this
year to explore a possible mega-alliance.

GM could still cooperate with the French-Japanese
group in procuring auto parts and materials, the report said.

Calls to Nissan headquarters in Tokyo went unanswered Saturday.

Separately, the Yomiuri reported that the
Japanese automaker, the country's second biggest,
will develop its own hybrid compact cars, ending
its four-year alliance with Toyota Motor Corp. in the area.

Nissan's hybrids will feature a lithium ion
battery that could be recharged with a power
plug, and the company expects to begin selling
the first models in 2010, the report said.
That would mark a change in strategy by the chief
executive of Renault and Nissan, Carlos Ghosn,
who has been unenthusiastic about developing
hybrid cars, calling them a niche technology. But
sales of Toyota's Prius gas-electric hybrids have been booming.

Nissan has been making solid profits, but
recently acknowledged it was selling fewer
vehicles around the world because of a dearth of new models.

Group net profit for the April-June quarter
jumped 4.2 percent to 748 million euros from
105.7 billion yen in the same period a year ago, the automaker said in July.

Quarterly sales by value also rose 3.1 percent to
15 billion euros, but the company sold fewer
vehicles during the quarter at 826,000 vehicles,
down six percent from a year earlier.

http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/business/20060923TDY01006.htm
Daily Yomiuri Online
The Yomiuri Shimbun (Sep. 23, 2006)

Nissan to end Toyota hybrid tie-up

Nissan Motor Co. will develop a new hybrid
vehicle technology on its own, which would end a
joint agreement with Toyota Motor Corp., sources said Friday.

The independently produced low-emission and
fuel-efficient models will be released on 2010, the sources said.

In the wake of rising oil prices, demand for
hybrid models has grown rapidly, leading Nissan
to reconsider its previous stance of cooperating
with Toyota on hybrid developments, the sources said.

The new compact car models will be equipped with
a lithium-ion battery system and include a
plug-in hybrid vehicle that can be recharged at home.

Compared with nickel-hydrogen batteries, which
Toyota and Honda Motor Co. have used, the
lithium-ion battery has more capacity and can be recharged more quickly.

Nissan and Toyota agreed in 2002 to work together
on hybrid vehicle developments. Toyota's hybrid
systems will be used in about 100,000 units of
Nissan's Altima Hybrid model, which the automaker
plans to put on the U.S. market early next year.

However, since Nissan now intends to mass-produce
its own models, it is considering using Toyota's
systems on just the Altima model sold in the United States.

Toyota likely will agree to Nissan's decision. A
representative for Toyota said it would not
provide its hybrid systems to Nissan for other
models than the Altima unless Nissan requested it to do so.

Nissan had not embarked on full-scale mass
production of hybrid cars since it wanted to wait
and see which types of low-emission cars would
come to dominate the market. The maker has
released only hybrid minivans on a limited scale,
but as hybrid car sales by Toyota and Honda have
grown in Japan and the United States, Nissan
decided it would lose market share unless it
entered the market with its own models.

Toyota initially considered the joint venture as
the best way to promote the use of hybrid
vehicles, going as far as to provide its systems
to a rival to help hybrid models become more mainstream.

With Nissan showing a serious intent to
mass-produce hybrid cars on its own, competition
among carmakers over developing low-emission vehicles likely will intensify.

-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --
Felix Kramer fkramer@...
Founder California Cars Initiative
http://www.calcars.org
http://www.calcars.org/news-index.html
http://www.hybridcars.com/blogs/power
http://www.bettah.org
-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --