Technobabble

What is it About the Nissan Cube?

Posted by on Aug 24, 2009 | 8 Comments

I get to spend my time in a wide range of vehicles, but I’ve never been in one quite like the Nissan Cube. Make no mistake about it, the Cube produces polarizing feedback. With the Cube still new to American streets, the range of emotions exhibited by passers-by runs the gamut, from one extreme to the other.

While my 2009 Nissan Cube review sticks to the usual game plan, there were some interesting social observations over the week long test drive. The Cube is not a car that you can drive anonymously. Folks often had remarkably strong reactions to the little vehicle’s unconventional and asymmetric design … from squeals of delight to looks of repulsion.

We test in the real world and roll up the miles over a prescribed course, as well as in daily errands. The funniest comment was at a retirement community.

I pulled up to a parking space near the entryway and as I got out of the Cube, one of the retirees asked (from her rocking chair on the front porch), “excuse me sir, is that an electric car?”

“It sure looks like it should be, doesn’t it?” I replied with a grin.

Although the Cube looks like it should be an electric car, it isn’t … not just yet. Nissan has shown an electric variant (the Denki Cube) and with the upcoming release of the Nissan Leaf EV, an electric Cube might not be all that far behind.

  • daverave

    What I find most interesting about driving cars like the Cube is this: Why do other people care so much about what people other than themselves drive? these critics should worry about their own car, not somebody else’s car.

    I drive an ancient, beater Toyota, and my neighbors are continually harassing me about upgrading to a more upscale, more modern car, or at least fixing the dents, getting it painted, etc. But I don’t care that much about what my car looks like as long as it gets me to where I need to be; yet other people DO care about what MY car is and what it looks like. Why?

  • leftystrat

    I think they need to work on a new ad slogan:

    Ugly cars for ugly people.

    If that fails,

    Ugly cars for attractive people.

  • Jeremy Newton

    @daverave.. They are probably more worried about your beater driving their property value into the ground than about what you are driving. Don’t take it so personal :D

  • Scott

    There is something to be said for truly ugly vehicles, I used to drive a 74 suburban 350,000 plus miles when I got rid of it .it was rust and pearlmoss green (chevy speak for putrid )driving it on the freeway was like parting the red sea. I aimed where I wanted to go and traffic parted. The one wreck I had A vw bug tailended me at 40 miles an hour didnt even wake my son in the car seat up totaled the bug didnt even paint transfer on the chevy

  • CubeDriver

    @leftystrat:
    I think you just proved how people’s reactions to the car go from one extreme to the other.

    Us “Cubists” really don’t care what other people think of the vehicle… we love it and seeing as though we are the ones driving them, who cares what anyone else thinks???

  • http://about.me/sandmaxprime Lionel Faleiro

    I normally:

    1. Download and play the demo – If I like it, I will keep it on a Too Buy List.
    2. Purchase Later – If the game has released, has gotten good reviews and impressed me in the demo, I will keep it aside and buy it Later. This tactic is especially useful for console games because after 3 months, the games get released as platinum releases where their prices are 50% of the price when it was first launched

  • Anonymous

    Well, as a mmorpg player, it gets expensive to pay the monthly fees up to 15 $us per month, after 1year, if you don’t pay, all that money means nothing and all that hard work is gone because you can not access the game to play, this is world of Warcraft model, but other games like world of tanks or global agenda are mature, solid mmorpg player games that have in game purchases that help to pay for the game, but free to play when you don’t have any money, this makes sense, because, you can pay for things you like to enhance the game experience, like tanks, you can buy some tanks, gold amo, convert experience to do upgrades, but if you don’t have any more money, you can still play the things you previously purchased. This is akin to purchasing some hobbies at home, you put it in the draw, if you don’t pay, the draw is locked, but in the real world, you paid for it, so you can enjoy it, want add on, extra features? Special jet pack what ever, then you can buy them and use them for ever, now I don’t feel conned, can save money and still have loads of fun in clans and teams.

  • Anonymous

    i can’t believe this ,I just got a $829.99 iPad2 for only $103.37 and my mom got a $1499.99 HDTV for only $251.92, they are both coming with USPS tomorrow. I would be an idiot to ever pay full retail prices at places like Walmart or Bestbuy. I sold a 37″ HDTV to my boss for $600 that I only paid $78.24 for. I use http://xub.me/ab