Nissan Juke gets more tech, more mpg
Recent Nissan model changes have been hits. Sales nearly doubled after the Nisan Rogue launched year. The midsize Nissan Altima, the one with the tires that chirp when you’ve put in enough air pressure, was the best-selling passenger car last month in the US. The 2015 Juke is one size down from the Rogue and will offer lane departure warning, blind spot detection, moving object detection (kids and bicycles near the car in a driveway). Torque vectoring that helps track the car through wet or icy corners, xenon headlamps, LED daytime running lights. The four-camera Around View monitor may seem like overkill on a dinky little thing (162 inches, or 4115 mm), but urban Juke buyers are likely trying to squeeze into dinky parking spaces.
The NisanConnect telematics system works with the driver’s smartphone and navigation to provide fuel prices, weather, TripAdvisor, and Yelp. The navigation version leverages Google apps. Destination download lets you send trip destinations from your web browser to the car.
Rogue sales shot up because of the wealth of tech in a $23K (starting price) vehicle and because of the luxe interior on higher end models. For the Rogue, one of three interior options have leather, and buyers can add custom personalization packs to remake the center console and door trim in red, white, black, or yellow. Europe gets the new Rogue this summer, where it will have an available turbocharged engine of just 1.2 liters. Both engines are Nissan’s high-power, high-effiency DIG-T design; a three-cylinder version used on a Nissan racecar weighs less than 100 pounds and fits in a suitcase. The US will likely maintain its Juke at a just-under-$20K starting price.
Hyundai Intrado fuel cell concept SUV
Hyundai will soon lease a hydrogen fuel cellHyundai Tucson SUV in California for $500 a month and give away free hydrogen. The catch: just nine stations in the state, not many more in the whole US. So with Hyundai already in the hydrogen car business, the Hyundai Intrado fuel cell concept could well see the light of day.
The fuel cell feeds a 36 kWh lithium-ion battery. Because you can’t normally store the hydrogen equivalent of 400 miles worth of gasoline on board, Hyundai concentrated on making the vehicle lighter through super lightweight steel from Hyundai foundries, along with carbon fiber panels.
A new fuel cell will provide up to 375 miles of range. No one’s taking notice, but that’s 100 miles farther than a Tesla with the extended battery. Woong-chul Yang, a vice chairman at Hyundai Motor Company, calls the Intrado “a vision of how eco-friendly cars will deliver delight to our customers.” That suggests the Intrado would be a production vehicle, possibly with a conventional combustion or hybrid engine as well. It might also be a design styling of the next Tuscon. The cockpit on the show car is done in Beaufort Orange.
“Intrado”? Hyundai says the term refers to the underside of the airplane wing. The underside of the wing helps give the plane lift since there’s more air pressure on the underside. The “intrado” link apparently is simplified design, lightweight construction, and powerful engines.
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