Nissan To Use IPod Model To Market Their Leaf

Bertel Schmitt
by Bertel Schmitt

By the end of the year, Nissan will, a bit belatedly, introduce their total plug-in, not range extended, all electric Leaf. They will also open a huge data center.

According to The Nikkei [sub], the location and other stats of the data center are strictly confidential. “But sources close to the company say the facility is equipped with quake protection and information-leak prevention systems so powerful it could even handle state secrets.” What do they need it for?

Nissan supposedly wants take a completely new way of selling vehicles. They want to use what they call an “iPod model” in the car industry.

“From now on, we will market cars based on the value of the information they provide,” said Toru Futami, expert leader at Nissan’s IT & ITS engineering department to the Nikkei.

Details are as shady as the exact location of the data center. The Nikkei could divine that “by connecting the facility and its cars through a high-speed wireless network, Nissan is able to receive driving information in real time. The system enables the driver to easily get information about such things as traffic jams and the location of charging stations.” Hmm. Big deal. Here’s another one:

“Because the data center stores a vast amount of information, including the number of times the car battery has been recharged, drivers will be able to calculate such things as how many more years a battery can be used and what value to place on it when the car is resold.” Nothing you need a big data center for, and nothing that would revolutionize the car market.

Now if Nissan could charge the Leaf while driving, that would be something. Don’t laugh. Theoretically possible. But then, reality sets in: Charging a Blackberry via WiFi in 3 hours is not the same as charging a 24kWh brute of a battery. So what do they really need that data center for?

Bertel Schmitt
Bertel Schmitt

Bertel Schmitt comes back to journalism after taking a 35 year break in advertising and marketing. He ran and owned advertising agencies in Duesseldorf, Germany, and New York City. Volkswagen A.G. was Bertel's most important corporate account. Schmitt's advertising and marketing career touched many corners of the industry with a special focus on automotive products and services. Since 2004, he lives in Japan and China with his wife <a href="http://www.tomokoandbertel.com"> Tomoko </a>. Bertel Schmitt is a founding board member of the <a href="http://www.offshoresuperseries.com"> Offshore Super Series </a>, an American offshore powerboat racing organization. He is co-owner of the racing team Typhoon.

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  • Davejay Davejay on Mar 09, 2010

    You know, it may also be something as simple as running their own data processing capabilities for simple things like car payments. Right now they use a third-party service, and if you're paying an NMAC loan you either have to enroll in automatic payments through a third party, pay by mail-in check, or pay a transaction fee of $5-$12 per non-scheduled online payment. If you're going to have an electric car with navigation, bluetooth and other communication/connectivity features, it makes sense to build a datacenter to support it -- but it also makes sense to leverage that datacenter for managing billing, too. In that context, larger capacity and extensive security aren't really a mystery. Oh, and the Leaf is supposed to be able to calculate how much charge you have left, and tell you where you can go to get charged back up within your remaining range, right? Real-time traffic data processing is going to be a substantial chunk of that if they want it to be accurate and timely. Finally, the iPod model comparison makes a bit more sense if you think of the Leaf as the shell and the battery capacity/engine power as the disk/processor combination. So perhaps you'll be able to buy a leaf that gets an 80-mile range with 0-60 in ten seconds for $x, 80-mile range with 0-60 in eight seconds for $y, and 120-mile range with 0-60 in ten seconds for $z -- with an occasional model "refresh" that updates the exterior/interior appearance and bumps those capability numbers to 100-mile + ten seconds, 100-mile + seven seconds, and 140-mile + ten seconds. That sort of thing. It'd be a fascinating way to sell cars.

  • Sloppyjoe Sloppyjoe on Mar 11, 2010

    They need the datacenter with top secret security clearance to store all the complaints they are going to get and cover up like thir cousin Toyota did.

  • Rochester "better than Vinfast" is a pretty low bar.
  • TheMrFreeze That new Ferrari looks nice but other than that, nothing.And VW having to put an air-cooled Beetle in its display to try and make the ID.Buzz look cool makes this classic VW owner sad 😢
  • Wolfwagen Is it me or have auto shows just turned to meh? To me, there isn't much excitement anymore. it's like we have hit a second malaise era. Every new vehicle is some cookie-cutter CUV. No cutting-edge designs. No talk of any great powertrains, or technological achievements. It's sort of expected with the push to EVs but there is no news on that front either. No new battery tech, no new charging tech. Nothing.
  • CanadaCraig You can just imagine how quickly the tires are going to wear out on a 5,800 lbs AWD 2024 Dodge Charger.
  • Luke42 I tried FSD for a month in December 2022 on my Model Y and wasn’t impressed.The building-blocks were amazing but sum of the all of those amazing parts was about as useful as Honda Sensing in terms of reducing the driver’s workload.I have a list of fixes I need to see in Autopilot before I blow another $200 renting FSD. But I will try it for free for a month.I would love it if FSD v12 lived up to the hype and my mind were changed. But I have no reason to believe I might be wrong at this point, based on the reviews I’ve read so far. [shrug]. I’m sure I’ll have more to say about it once I get to test it.
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