Sunday, July 24, 2011

Nissan Motor Company Ltd (Japanese: ????????? Nissan Jidosha Kabushiki-gaisha?) (TYO: 7201), usually shortened to Nissan (play /’ni?s??n/ or UK /’n?sæn/; Japanese: [nis?a?]), is a multinational automaker headquartered in Japan. It was formerly a core member of the Nissan Group, but has become more independent after its restructuring under Carlos Ghosn (CEO).

It formerly marketed vehicles under the “Datsun” brand name and is one of the largest car manufacturers in the world. As of 2011, the company’s global headquarters is located in Nishi-ku, Yokohama. In 1999, Nissan entered a two way alliance with Renault S.A. of France, which owns 43.4% of Nissan while Nissan holds 15% of Renault shares, as of 2008. The current market share of Nissan, along with Honda and Toyota, in American auto sales represent the largest of the automotive firms based in Asia that have been increasingly encroaching on the historically dominant US-based “Big Three” consisting of GM, Ford and Chrysler. In its home market, Nissan became the second largest car manufacturer in 2011, surpassing Honda with Toyota still very much the dominant first. Along with its normal range of models, Nissan also produces a range of luxury models branded as Infiniti.

The Nissan VQ engines, of V6 configuration, have been featured among Ward’s 10 Best Engines for 14 straight years.

The new car’s name was an acronym of the company’s partners’ family names:

Kenjiro Den (? ??? Den Kenjiro?)
Rokuro Aoyama (?? ?? Aoyama Rokuro?)
Meitaro Takeuchi (?? ??? Takeuchi Meitaro?).

It was renamed to Kwaishinsha Motorcar Co. in 1918, and again to DAT Motorcar Co. in 1925. DAT Motors built trucks in addition to the DAT and Datsun passenger cars. The vast majority of its output were trucks, due to an almost non-existent consumer market for passenger cars at the time. Beginning in 1918, the first DAT trucks were produced for the military market. It was the low demand of the military market in the 1920s that forced DAT to merge in 1926 with Japan’s 2nd most successful truck maker, Jitsuyo Motors.

In 1926 the Tokyo-based DAT Motors merged with the Osaka-based Jitsuyo Jidosha Co., Ltd. (??????????? Jitsuyo Jidosha Seizo Kabushiki-Gaisha?) a.k.a. Jitsuyo Motors (established 1919, as a Kubota subsidiary) to become DAT Automobile Manufacturing Co., Ltd. (???????????? Datto Jidosha Seizo Kabushiki-Gaisha?) in Osaka until 1932. (Jitsuyo Jidosha began producing a three-wheeled vehicle with an enclosed cab called the Gorham in 1920, and the following year produced a four-wheeled version. From 1923 to 1925, the company produced light cars and trucks under the name of Lila.)

In 1931, DAT came out with a new smaller car, the first “Datson”, meaning “Son of DAT”. Later in 1933 after Nissan took control of DAT Motors, the last syllable of Datson was changed to “sun”, because “son” also means “loss” (?) in Japanese, hence the name “Datsun” (????? Dattosan?).[2]

In 1933, the company name was Nipponized to Jidosha-Seizo Co., Ltd. (????????? Jidosha Seizo Kabushiki-Gaisha?, “Automobile Manufacturing Co., Ltd.”) and was moved to Yokohama.

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