Automobile
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Empty nesters’ rolling roosts: Two cars tailored to the growing population trend of coupes without kids.
1999 Chevrolet Malibu LS vs. Dodge Stratus ES, Honda Accord LX, Hyundai Sonata GLS, Mitsubishi Galant ES, Nissan Altima GXE, Oldsmobile Alero GL, Toyota Camry LE
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ROAD TEST It’s just like Earnhardt’s, if ol’ Ironhead raced a V-6 front-drive. Read the rest of this entry »
The State of Ohio, like many other states in Untied States, has made Auto Insurance mandatory. Auto insurance ensures financial responsibility in the case of an accident. A person who has insurance cover can pay for any damages he has caused in an accident. In the state of Ohio, it is a punishable offense to drive without proof of insurance. There are two major aspects to insurance coverage. These are liability coverage and property damage coverage.
Liability coverage pays for any bodily injury that you might have caused in the accident. The State of Ohio has fixed the minimum liability coverage at twelve thousand five hundred dollars per person for bodily injury in an accident. The minimum liability in total per accident is twenty five thousand dollars for a maximum of two persons. Property damage coverage covers any damages caused to property during the accident. This includes any damage to the other person’s car. It will pay for any repairs or even replacement if needed. Property damage will also pay for any damage caused to buildings, fences, lamp posts etc. The minimum property damage coverage is seven thousand five hundred dollars. However, this is only the minimum. In most of the accidents, damages far exceed the insurance amounts. It is always a good idea to get your self insured for more than the minimum amount.
There are many other kinds of policies too. These cover aspects not covered in liability and property damage. One such insurance coverage would be uninsured or underinsured coverage. These two are similar policies with very few differences. Uninsured policy pays for any damage caused to you when you are involved in an accident and the person responsible for the accident is not covered by any kind of insurance. Underinsured policy covers your damages when you are involved in an accident with a driver or motorist whose insurance policy does not cover all the damages. Even though this is not a mandatory form of coverage in the State of Ohio, it is a very common policy. Many states have made one of the two or even both mandatory.
Another form of insurance policy would be medical payments coverage. This is a policy that insurance companies advise to have and use as soon as possible. This policy pays for the medical expenses of the injured in the accident. This reduces the chances of the injured person suing you. A few policies even cover lost wages.
The other common form of insurance would be physical damage coverage. This policy covers any physical damage to your car. There are two policies within this coverage. They are collision damage and comprehension. Collision damage would take care of any damage caused to your car during an accident. It would pay for repairs and any replacement if needed. Comprehensive coverage covers any damages caused to your car other than accidents. This includes any damage by heavy rain or hailstorms. It also includes vandalisms or thefts. These are policies not made mandatory by the law. However, if there is alien on the car, they might be needed for new vehicles.
This fall Nissan plans to give us the first official, undisguised look at the new Cube. It will debut at the L.A. show in November, Larry Dominique, vice president in charge of product planning for Nissan North America, tells
Car and Driver .
Until then, feel free to analyze these spy shots of the next-generation Cube that has served as an icon of sorts in other markets and will be sold in North America for the first time in the spring of 2009. This latest Cube was designed as a global vehicle that meets specs on all continents, with assembly consolidated in Japan.
Nissan Motor Corporation design director Shiro Nakamura describes the styling of this successor as “super evolution.” For a size reference, the current Cube is about an inch longer and 10 inches taller than a
.
We got a sense of where the box is going with the at the , but while the Denki was an electric car, the prototype caught testing here is the gasoline-powered model that will go on sale as a 2010 model.
More Power Needed Stateside Nissan officials are not yet talking about powertrains, but for North American roads the Cube will need a larger and more powerful engine than the 95-hp, 1.4-liter four-cylinder in the current Japanese model—at the very least to keep up with the 158-hp
, its most obvious competitor.
The transmission will likely be a carryover four-speed automatic, perhaps without the optional continuously variable transmission as Nissan stopped offering the CVT in the base
sedan in the U.S. for the 2008 model year, leaving customers the choice of a four-speed automatic or five-speed manual. The upgraded Versa SL sedan and the hatchback will continue to have a CVT.
And we hope the second-gen Cube addresses some of the issues found in the original, including wind noise, some body roll, and handling that is not exactly dynamic. The bench front seat of the current Cube does not adjust, something American consumers have grown used to.
The Cube is one of many vehicles from Nissan’s prolific B-Platform. The front-engine, front-wheel-drive architecture is Nissan’s highest-volume platform, serving as the basis for the Versa, Cube, Micra, Note, March, Tiida, Bluebird Sylphy, and more. Only the Versa is on sale in the U.S., and the Micra was available in Canada in the early nineties.
Having recently driven a variety of Micras in Portugal, we lust after one for North American consumption. But Dominique says the fledgling subcompact market in the U.S. will be more than adequately covered with the Versa’s mainstream appeal and the Cube for those with more attitude. Dominique describes the addition of the Cube as a “line extension” to the Versa, designed to bring in a different customer. Marketing and distribution of two subcompacts is about all the automaker can handle, he says. Translation: no Micras for us now and none when the next generation bows in about three years.
Nissan Green Program 2010 The Denki Cube should not be ignored, though, as Nissan continues in-house work on hybrids as part of Nissan Green Program 2010, a strategy that encompasses everything from electric vehicles and alternative fuels to recycling and more efficient assembly plants.
Nissan has promised a full hybrid in 2010, and there is an electric car in the works, also due in that same timeline. It will be a new vehicle, not an electric version of an existing one, says Nissan chief operating officer Toshiyuki Shiga. The tight-lipped senior executive will only hint that it will be small and sporty.
As for mild hybrids in the future, little has been said. Nissan’s only current hybrid, the
, will remain limited to eight-state distribution for the foreseeable future, Dominique says, as he does not foresee enough incremental volume to warrant investment to meet regulations in all 50 states. And he says he’s happy with Altima hybrid sales as they are.
Article source: http://www.caranddriver.com/news/spied/08q2/2010_nissan_cube_caught_testing-spied