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.