After a long drought without new products, the minivan segment saw every one of its competitors replaced or refreshed in the 2011 model year. That's epic change--or so it seems. For the best sellers--Sienna, Odyssey, the Chrysler minivans--the changes were more updates than reinventions. Not so for the Nissan Quest, which changed everything, from the place it was built to the way it offered up seating for seven. It wasn't all for the better, and though the Quest is still one of the top choices for families that want one vehicle to do it all, it's fallen back in the pack.
The latest Quest is smaller and taller. It loses its droopy look for an upright stance and lots of flared lines in front, with a straight-edged passenger box that's more than a little like that on the Ford Flex crossover, with a pillarless look down its sides and a blunt, almost vertical tail. It's crisp and angular, and clearly derived from its home market, where it's been on sale as the Elgrand for a couple of years. The interior design is more formal, less risky, too, with lots of woodgrain trim across a fairly plain-looking dash that stacks some controls in unintuitive places. The audio controls are split into two locations, and some switches are to the right of the shifter, halfway out of sight.
A 3.5-liter V-6, coupled to a continuously variable transmission, is the Quest's only powertrain. It doesn't grumble as much here as it does in some other Nissans, and it's pretty perky for such a large vehicle. The steering has good feedback, the CVT has some pre-programmed "shift' points to cut down on typically rubbery response, and body roll is tempered more than in other big minivans. In all, the Quest has the best handling of its kind, which follows its slightly more compact footprint. Gas mileage is among the lowest of the front-drive minivans.
The Quest's use of space is a little disappointing. It's still a big vehicle in the grander scheme, and front-seat passengers won't lack for leg or head room, or for storage of small items. From there, the Quest slips behind other minivans, first with sliding side doors that don't open wide enough to load in large people or objects. The last time around, the Quest had fold-away seats in the second and third rows. Now the seats fold forward, but don't disappear into the floor, and they can't be removed. The third-row seat folds flat, too, but stays in place while every other minivan's third-row seat folds away to create a flat cargo floor. A lot of usable space is lost in the process, and in a type of vehicle that places a priority on seating, space, and safety, it's a let down.
The IIHS says the Quest earns "good" ratings for front and side impacts, but gives it "acceptable" scores for roof crush. The base van comes with the usual airbags and stability control, but all-wheel drive is not offered, and to get Bluetooth and a rearview camera--essential safety items, we think--you'll have to spend more than $32,000. With major options--such as power side doors and a power tailgate; leather; satellite radio; and a DVD entertainment system--it's possible to spend nearly $40,000 on Nissan's minivan.
Nearly halfway into my one-year test, the Juke's odometer ticked passed 7500 miles. To a Juke owner like me, that meant heading to the dealer for a minor service and checkup. Nissan categorizes its recommended services under two banners based on driving severity: Maintenance Schedule 1, or checkups every 3750 miles (or three months, whichever comes first), is tailored towards those that drive their vehicles hard or in particularly dusty climates. Schedule 2, on the other hand, is for those that drive in less severe conditions and recommends dealer stops every 7500 miles (or six months). As I'm not one to push the Juke to its extremes all the time (okay, once in a while, I've been known to), I opted for the latter schedule. In doing so, Power Nissan performed a lube, oil, and filter change, and rotated the Goodyears to even out normal wear.I made the executive decision to upgrade to Mobil1 synthetic oil for improved viscosity and, well, because Melissa, our resident service advisor, remarked that "the Juke is a turbo, so it's better for it!" All joking aside, the 1.6-liter turbo will likely be happier with synthetic oil running through its veins. In discussing which oil to choose with associate online editor, Benson Kong, we both found it surprising that Nissan didn't fill the Juke with synthetic at the factory. Then again, Kong said, he'd wager the Juke's cooling efficiency is pretty good without it.Oftentimes when I spend so much time in one vehicle, I forget what makes it special. Luckily for me, appreciating what the Juke has to offer is just a key grab away. Case in point, during lunch following my visit to the dealer, I managed to sneak into one of our newest long-term sports cars (that shall remain nameless until an Arrival article is published shortly). Without revealing too much, the sleek two-door arrived with on-the-fly dampener adjustability. In its stiffest Sport mode, it felt just a smidge more responsive and harder than the Juke's unsophisticated suspension.Sadly, however, after all the handling fun waned and it was time for my 1.5-hour commute home, I pined for a GT-R-like "Comfort" suspension mode. Rolling on any surface that's less than billiard smooth means having to duck and dodge every pothole in sight. In Los Angeles, that's nearly impossible, but hey, in the span of just a few hours, I've relearned to admire my quirky little ride.
Prior to 2011, Nissan pledged allegiance to U.S. production of its Quest minivan. The first two generations, offered from 1993 until 2002, were manufactured alongside the Mercury Villager at Ford's Avon Lake, Ohio, assembly plant. After the Nissan-Mercury deal dissolved, Nissan moved production to its Canton, Mississippi, facility, which churned out third-gen Quests from 2004 to 2009. But while U.S. production helped Americanize the Quest, Nissan never saw big sales returns, mostly due to vans that were either too small or too weird. 
Taking a long-distance ride in the Juke necessitates a few modifications to my usual pre-drive preparations. Take, for example, packing. It isn't exactly "normal" in the Juke. On my recent trip to Las Vegas, stuffing the paltry 10.5 cu-ft of rear cargo space was as easy as throwing in my girlfriend's duffle bag and my backpack. Shortly thereafter, we laughed at how the trunk barely accommodated our stuff. For reference, our little green Mazda2 long termer has more space (13.3 cu-ft) than Nissan's smallest and funkiest CUV. Imagine that. Next, came music selection. Admittedly, picking music isn't all that abnormal -- everyone does it all the time. But in the Juke, the available options are surprising for such a relatively cheap segment player. The lower dash conveniently has both USB and auxiliary inputs that can accommodate a number of music devises. They're located near the cup holders for easy access. There is also Sirius XM radio. I preferred an iPhone/iPod arrangement, which my copilot-turned-DJ took over at first chance. Our Top 40 pop tunes pumped through a nice sounding Rockford Fosgate system, but it's no match against any Windex-clear Nissan/Infiniti Bose setup. Then again, it's more likely the aforementioned input jacks will catch more attention from the targeted twenty-something buyers than stellar audio quality.Halfway through our four-hour drive, I noticed only a handful of other Jukes on the road. In LA proper, they're as common as out-of-work actors. This is a rarified ride in the desert. At one gas station, a fellow gas-filler mentioned he had never really seen a Juke up close. "It's definitely different," he said as he examined the front fascia. Nearly everything about this car is just that - different. Save for the standard operating procedure of the pedals, steering wheel, and seatbelt, you'll be doing something different when a Juke is in your driveway. In that sense, Nissan undoubtedly nailed it.
It's been been awhile since our fleet welcomed such an eye-catcher. People are intrigued by the Juke. I first experienced its draw when I encountered a pedestrian at a stoplight. She stopped, pointed, waved, and mouthed, "I like your car." Our topline SL arrived with torque-vectoring all-wheel drive and a continuously variable transmission. Amenities are substantial at the SL level: Nissan Advanced Airbag System, 60/40 split rear seats, power windows/locks/seats, six-speaker stereo, and navigation with Bluetooth are some of the notable ones. Floormats ($170) and a roof spoiler ($390) were our only options. To accentuate the Juke's physique, we specified a Cayenne Red paint job with a black and red interior color scheme.
Over the first few weeks of testing, we've grown to appreciate the little Nissan for its size, agility, and peppiness. Its compact dimensions make it a gem in tight locations. A turbocharged 188-horse, 1.6-liter DIG (Direct Injection Gasoline) engine gets the Juke to 60 mph in 7.3 seconds. It's not the quickest crossover around, but it is entertaining once the road swerves. The Juke calmly negotiates mild bends thanks to an athletically tuned suspension and all-wheel-drive setup. Punch it, and its modest thrust will have you wondering why the boosted mill isn't in a small sports car. Ahem, Nissan...Motor Trend Rating: 
"History," quipped America's greatest philosopher, "doesn't repeat itself...but it does rhyme." Mark Twain died 101 years ago, just as the practice of a whistle and a snap of the reins to your buggy's horse was giving way to hand-cranking newfangled automobiles. I'm no Twain scholar, but it's easy to imagine him lowering one of those famous caterpillar eyebrows and raising the other as those nutty new contraptions clattered past his Connecticut home-rather like our contemporary bystanders in Newport Beach, California (though with much better eyebrow grooming), who stopped and pointed as we photographed a Prius test car next to our long-term Chevrolet Volt and Nissan Leaf. Those Twain-like glances are understandable, though; it's been a century since any of us has known anything but petroleum-burning propulsion.What's brought us to this once-a-century inflection point? Pick your slogan: "Global warming is real!" "Imported oil endangers national security!" "Gas costs four bucks!" Whichever spikes their adrenaline level, people are starting to seriously ponder electric grid-assisted, or entirely grid-powered, automobiles (and creating some odd bedfellows along the way). What are the tradeoffs with living with a plug-in car? To find out, we compared the Prius I mentioned -- which, at a 50 combined mpg, is the most efficient "conventional" car in the country (hands down, in fact) -- against these two levels of electro-pluggability. If you're curious to dip a toe in the electrical current (with the other remaining in a familiar barrel of oil), there's the Volt, which hedges its 35-40-mile EV bet with a range-extending, 1.4-liter engine. Want to swan dive into the EV deep end? The only reason a Leaf needs to visit a gas station is to put air in its tires.
And, yep, for the first time ever, we've enlisted a Prius as a mere technological yardstick. The flip side is the implication that it's time to finally admit that the Prius is actually a mainstream (and even profitable) car. Supporting evidence: The Prius recently cracked the millionth-U.S.-sold milestone; its once-bizarre drivetrain is now discussed in commodity terms; and its nickel-metal-hydride batteries (originally so fretted about) are trying to outlive the cars they're mounted in. It's "effectively" conventional, too, in the sense that if you're oblivious to what's going under the Prius' snout, it doesn't matter. Just fill 'er-up with gas like any other car. (No need to search for any of those "exotic" diesel stations, even.) Motor Trend Rating: 
Our Leaf has been charged at various locations in its first month, but if it had only been charged at my residence, the entire 438.196 kW-hrs would have cost roughly $57 based on the $0.13-per-kW-hr I was most recently billed (the lowest usage tier out of five). But at 438.196 kW-hrs, that consumption amount would have likely landed me in the middle third tier, where a single kW-hr costs $0.24, yielding a $105 tab. With gas at $4 per gallon, that $105 would have bought me 26.25 gallons of gas.
It’s when we shift our attention to the 24-kW-hr battery that we see the Leaf’s biggest constraint. They’re space-consuming, expensive, and painfully slow to refill. If there’s one thing an electric vehicle supporter and opponent can agree on, it’s that battery-electric cars aren’t the most versatile driving solutions. Not yet, at least. If your garage-less apartment community or tyrannical condo association is only letting you keep one car on the premises, you really shouldn’t slap a deposit down on the Leaf unless you’re ready for an all-new lifestyle dedicated to babysitting an EV’s charging needs. I’ll tell you now: the hard-working, lithium-ion pack lusts for companionship.
Based on our observations, the Leaf’s trickle charger can add 1.0-1.25 kW-hrs per hour, though we should remember that not all of the electrical energy flowing out of the socket is dispersed to the battery. Ohmic resistance and other losses zap efficiency, so when you’re charging an EV, you end up paying for some extra heating. For reference, 1.25 kW-hrs would be the equivalent of slow-dripping 4.75 fluid ounces of gasoline into a container for an hour. That’s a bit over half a U.S. cup—one cup is 8 fluid ounces. And per the Leaf’s own measurements, average energy use normally lingers around 3-5 miles per kW-hr.
Did I mention I paid a visit to a DC fast charger? A solitary Level 3 public charger (generically meaning 300-500 volts) sits in a parking lot in Vacaville, California, about 50 miles northeast of San Francisco. In an advance scouting run, I took a closer look without the Leaf, and found that the CHAdeMO charger had been turned off since we last saw it on a Mitsubishi i drive. The taped-up paper sign said Northern California utility provider Pacific Gas and Electric Company was working on “appropriate certification,” and we’re told that regulatory red tape is the lone reason the DC quick charger is unavailable to the public (courtesy of Mitsubishi’s David Patterson). Because the charger was sourced from the Tokyo Electric Power Company, it doesn’t meet certain rules in the U.S. to allow mass utilization. So we’ve yet to find an operating fast-charge dispenser for our car’s optional DC plug ($700 for SL trim, included with SL-e), but we haven’t given up yet.
Compact sedans are all the rage, with a host of new entries from both domestic and import manufacturers reaching showrooms recently. Nissan will cash in on that popularity with the 2012 Versa sedan, debuting today at the New York auto show with refreshed styling and tweaks to improve fuel economy. The 2012 Versa rides on an evolution of the last car's platform called V, for Versatile. The sedan's wheelbase and width are unchanged from the current model, but it loses about an inch of length and height. Despite this, Nissan says that packaging improvements for the engine and transaxle mean there is more trunk space. The new car also should be marginally lighter than before.
Styling-wise, the new Versa takes cues from the larger Altima and Maxima sedans, starting with a new grille design and oval-shaped headlights, and continued with a smoother rear and reshaped taillights that sweep from the rear bumper to the Versa's rear haunches. The hood and sides are broken up by an assortment of creased character lines akin to those seen on the Hyundai Elantra. Whereas the old Versa had a more conventional flat roof and steep rear window, the new car's roofline gently slopes toward the trunk, following the coupe-like trend. The exterior changes reportedly help achieve a low 0.31 drag coefficient. 
Nissan claims the Versa's rear seats offer more legroom than a BMW 5 Series or Mercedes-Benz E-Class, and says much effort was spent making the seats comfier and the interior more spacious and appealing. The new dashboard has rounded, contoured controls in place of the drab flat-plastic layout in the old car, a simpler dual-gauge instrument cluster, and a redesigned steering wheel. That said, the interior continues to showcase expanses of plain plastics and fabrics (in either Sandstone or Charcoal color schemes) that don't look particularly upscale.