Click above for a high-res gallery of the Japan-spec 2008 Nissan Cube

The Nissan Cube is coming to the U.S. next Spring, and we'll get our first look at the U.S.-spec car when it makes its debut at this year's Los Angeles Auto Show. I recently had the opportunity to drive a Japanese-market edition for four days, and it's a very neat little car. Driving the JDM vehicle also illustrates how differently small Japanese cars are set up depending on their target market. Is the Cube an economy car? In Japan, it would certainly qualify, boasting a fuel economy rating of 16 km/l (some 37 mpg U.S.) according to the country's 10-15 mode test cycle. That's basically the combined cycle, and the test is done at low speeds. For Japan, where there's plenty of urban driving and road congestion, it probably serves as a fair indicator of what drivers will experience. For us, not so much. Read on after the jump.


All photos Copyright ©2008 Alex Núñez / Weblogs, Inc.

Honda has big plans for the future. In addition to their already admirable goals of CO2 reductions, they called out from the rooftops earlier this month that they are going to be building next-generation clean diesel engines that will meet the Tier 2 BIN 5 NOx emissions standards here in the states, but will be selling them in Japan as well.

They did not announce that they planned on selling their flexible fuel iterations of the Civic and Fit here in the U.S. that those fortunate fellows in South America have been enjoying since the end of last year, but they did see fit to brag about their sales figures: 10,000 units, where over half of the Civics sold were flexible fuel models. Swell.

The best news here is that Honda will be selling a dedicated new hybrid model by 2009. Even better, pricing is intended to fall below that of the Civic Hybrid. As long as it's more practical than the Insight, I think we'll all be pretty happy with it at that price point.

[Source: Honda]