The first fruit of the Nissan-Suzuki small car joint venture was revealed this week as Nissan Europe announced the Pixo ahead of its Paris debut.
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It looked familiar, and so it should – it’s a renosed variant of the redesigned Alto also destined for a Paris reveal. Suzuki’s no stranger to such deals – it shares a B-segement model with GM Europe and builds minicars for rival brands to sell in Japan – such so-called ‘OEM’ deals are very common in that segment. Suzuki has also rebadged its previous Hungarian Swifts for Subaru to sell as the Justy but now Daihatsu does the honours.
We’ll hear more from India before too long as the Suzuki-Nissan JV will also produce the next Micra (European version of the Japanese March). And, of course, it’s now a major export base for Hyundai, whose new i20 comes from there as well.
Energy companies are not popular in the UK right now, as they hike electricity and gas prices by huge amounts at least twice yearly amid accusations of profiteering. So EDF was looking for coverage of a more positive kind this week as it launched plug-in hybrid trials with Toyota. As our environment correspondent noted, it’s as much about driver behaviour and expectations as the technology.
Renault announced a new Megane a little more toned down than the controversial second-gen model (the hatchbacks anyway) and it looks pretty classy. Then it confirmed a long-heralded proposal to axe 4,000 jobs, hopefully voluntarily, and that led to what appeared to be token short stoppages yesterday.
Amidst all this fun and excitement, our researchers beavered on. Matthew Beecham has put roof systems under his microscope and his report is well worth a look.
Enjoy your weekend – and I’ll enjoy two weeks’ holiday…
Graeme Roberts
Deputy Editor
just-auto.com
