Your Car Questions

Two weeks ago, Chrysler terminated its joint venture talks with Chery. This doesn’t stop Chrysler from talking to the Chinese. The talks go in two directions: One, Chrysler needs low cost cars, and the Chinese have them. Two, Chrysler is looking for a buyer, and a Chinese company may just have mercy and cash and [...]

Nissan got at least one thing right on the small, boxy five-door Cube: the side hinged rear door opens the right way. (That is, to the left.) That may sound simple, but in fact it’s a breakthrough for a Japanese automaker. Other small SUVs imported from Japan with side-hinged doors have had doors that open to the right since they were first introduced in 1996.

In Japan, where traffic travels on the left side of the road, this makes sense. At the curb, the door opens out, leaving the opening toward the curb for unloading cargo or groceries. In the U.S., driving on the right side of the road, the open door, swung to the right, is in your way as you try to load luggage.

So what’s a Japanese company to do? At times, Honda, Suzuki, and Toyota decided it isn’t worth the expense to build two versions of their small SUVs, with the rear doors opening opposite directions. (Honda has corrected this on the current-generation CR-V by using a liftgate.)

But with the Cube, expected to cost on par with the Scion xD (well below $20,000) and less than a small SUV when it arrives in showrooms this spring, Nissan has done just that. And that’s not all.

The Cube is full of quirky designs, like the “pebble drop” headliner with concentric, raised circles and the asymmetrical rear window. With upright seating and a relatively tall roof, the Cube has lots of room for passengers inside. For the U.S. market, this second-generation Cube is powered by a 1.8-liter, four-cylinder engine that’s likely to have more verve than the 1.4-liter, Japanese-spec version of the previous Cube we drove a few months ago at a press event.

One other demerit is obvious, though. With the Cube’s tail-lights across the bumper, the liftover height is tall. And the rear seat doesn’t make a flat cargo floor, leaving a well for larger boxes to fall into.

We’ll buy a Cube to test as soon as it’s available and let you know whether Nissan is thinking is outside the box, or it has reinvented the box.

—Eric Evarts

Read more articles about the Cube:
Electric cars take charge in Israel, Denmark
The Nissan Denki Cube concept at the 2008 New York auto show.

Volvo is Latin for “I turn” (as in “revolving credit” of lore, or as in “revolver” for people who can’t get one.) Nomen est omen: Never has the word been truer than now, as the formerly glorious Swedish brand is being offered-up for a gang-bang. From day one, TTAC chronicled the trials and tribulations of the [...]

China has a 60 percent local content law for cars. If local content falls below that mark, the car is treated as an import, even if it’s Made in China. That means a 25 percent duty. “Unfair!” said the US, EU and Canada, and filed a complaint with the WTO in March 2006. In July, [...]

GPS can already keep you from getting lost and save you time by avoiding traffic. Now the technology seems ripe for saving the planet, too.

At the International Intelligent Transportation Society’s World Congress in New York last month, we learned about ongoing developments in smart, connected infrastructure development, an exciting field focused on the ability for cars and roadways to share information.

In an interesting application of this technology, Audi and Nissan demonstrated GPS systems that allow drivers to choose the least polluting and most efficient routes. By mapping traffic data down to individual lanes, such systems can show drivers which lanes are least congested, enabling drivers to reduce pollution and fuel consumption.

Going a step further, by interfacing with traffic signals and surrounding GPS units, GPS-equipped trucks and emergency vehicles will be able to prioritize traffic lights to minimize emissions from these heavy polluters, while also balancing traffic flow.

If all that sounds too good, it’s only partially true. The know-how exists, but the infrastructure for GPS systems to communicate with each other and with roadways, and to collect traffic data with such specificity is in its infancy. On the consumer side, it will take many connected cars and portable devices, and cities will have to invest in upgrading a lot of intersections before it will work. And both Audi and Nissan said they have no plans to roll out their systems until the infrastructure becomes more widespread.

Still, we found it encouraging to see technology promising a way to tread a little safer and lighter.

—Eric Evarts

Nextar is the latest maker of portable GPS navigation devices to announce free lifetime traffic information, coming with the launch of their new Q4-LT in the third quarter of 2009.

The Q4-LT will join devices from Garmin and Navigon already available with free real-time traffic. Like the Garmin Nuvi 265WT, Nextar’s traffic info will be advertising supported, with what the company describes as discreet ads and special promotions based on the user’s location. (The recently tested Navigon 2200T and 7200T, have free lifetime traffic without ads, as does the 8100T now being evaluated.)

Other Q4-LT features include a 4.3-inch screen, spoken street names, maps of the full United States and Canada, an MP3 player, and a photo viewer. Suggested retail price has been set at $249.99, though as we have seen on Nextar units heavily marketed during the holiday season, lower prices will likely be available.

—Jim Travers

A short overview of what happened in other parts of the world while you were in bed. TTAC provides round-the-clock coverage of everything that has wheels. Or has its wheels coming off. D2.8 may get unexpected break - strength from weakness: The money-losing automakers made at least some money in some foreign markets. However, the [...]

Last July, with gas prices soaring, we covered a study that showed how mpg numbers for fuel economy often mislead consumers and cause them to make poor decisions. (See our original posting, “Not all mpgs are created equal.”)

Now the Duke University professors who did the original study have published online calculators to help you see the real effect of choosing a particular car with higher or lower gas mileage. The bottom line is, high-mileage cars are a game of diminishing returns. You get more bang for your buck improving the mileage of poor performing cars than by replacing a car with good mileage with one that gets a really impressive mpg number.

Try the calculators yourself at www.mpgillusion.com. A couple of notes: You need the latest Flash player to see the calculators. And once you get there, you can’t find fuel consumption figures for ranges of less than 100 miles. Still, computing fuel consumption from mpg isn’t easy in your head. So these calculators are a good starting point to understand the effects of improving gas mileage.

You can find fuel economy test results in our New Car Selector and on individual model pages, accessed through our A-Z index or the pulldown menus on major ConsumerReports.org Cars pages.

—Eric Evarts

“If we’re going to use taxpayer financing to assist the automakers, all stakeholders are going to have to come to the table and be willing to show that they are capable and willing to make really tough decisions about the way forward,” White House Spokesperson Dana Perino said today. “We’re not going to be rushed [...]