Restyled 2010 Nissan Altima on Sale Thursday

We’ve already shown you a sneak peak of the 2010 Nissan Altima, but here’s a look at the fully revealed 2010 model that's scheduled to go on sale Thursday.

Besides the new look — featuring a fresh hood, grille and front bumper — an electronic stability system is now standard, which is a little late in the game compared to the Altima's competition. On the inside, Nissan’s next-generation navigation option includes a larger screen — from 4.3 to 6.5 inches — as well as a host of added features like a hard drive for music storage, streaming Bluetooth audio, restaurant guide, and live traffic and weather information.

Engine and transmission options remain relatively unchanged except the sedan loses its manual transmission for 2010, making a continuously variable automatic transmission the sole transmission offering. You can still get a manual teamed with the coupe’s four- and six-cylinder engines.

The four-cylinder with CVT gains 1 mpg in highway ratings, now at 23/32 mpg city/highway, and the six-cylinder with CVT gains 1 mpg in city and highway ratings, now at 20/27 mpg.

Like previous years, the Altima Hybrid will be sold only in states that have adopted California's emission regulations: California, Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island and Vermont.

Full pricing is below and does not include a $720 destination charge. We also have many more photos after the jump.

Nissan Shows First Image of Refreshed 2010 Altima

Nissan revealed a partial shot of the 2010 Altima today, and it appears the company’s midsize sedan will get more substantive styling updates than the Sentra’s and Versa’s 2010 visual changes, which amounted to a hill of beans. It looks like the 2010 Altima trades the current model’s one-piece air dam for separated fog-light portals, however, it doesn’t adopt the boomerang-shaped headlights seen on the redesigned Z and Maxima. The 2010 Altima’s lights have been tweaked from the 2009 model’s (see below) but not drastically so.

The current-generation Altima has been around since the 2007 model year. A full redesign is still a ways off, but 2010 should bring some major updates. It could mean a retuned continuously variable automatic transmission that ekes out 1 or 2 mpg better than the current four-cylinder with automatic’s 31-mpg highway rating. You’ll likely see standard stability control (right now it’s optional) to keep up with all of the Altima’s major competitors. The cabin will probably see some modest changes, too.

We’ll let you know when we have more details, but if you’re thinking of buying an Altima, you might want to wait a few more weeks to see what’s in store.

Nissan Updates Incentives for Cash for Clunkers

Now that Cash for Clunkers has a fresh round of funding, automakers who didn’t see huge sales the first time around are making sure their own incentives will lure in shoppers. Nissan launched a new sale called the Bottom Line event. There are significant cash-back offers on a number of models including $3,000 off a 2009 Nissan Quest and $2,000 cash back on a 2009 Nissan Sentra.

The program runs through Aug. 31; a detailed list of incentives is below.

New York City to Experiment With Hybrid Cop Cars

New York City Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly and Mayor Michael Bloomberg have announced that the city’s police department will add 40 Nissan Altima Hybrids to its fleet. This is the first time the city will have used hybrids as patrol vehicles.

Twenty of the vehicles will be unmarked, two will be disguised as taxis in an anticrime fleet, and the rest will get the blue and white paint that’s typical of patrol cars. That may not seem like much in a fleet of 3,000 patrol cars, but the 40 hybrids will serve as a pilot program. After a year, their performance will be evaluated to see if the city will add more.

At a cost of $25,391 per vehicle for the department, the Altima Hybrid – which is only sold in seven states – will cost the city about $1,500 more than a Ford Crown Victoria or Chevy Impala, the current patrol vehicles, but the department expects to make up the difference in fuel savings. With a top speed of 113 mph, the hybrids are also slower, but patrol vehicles are meant for the stop-and-go traffic of a city, not high-speed chases.

Of course, we expect comments on why New York City isn’t buying American cars, but Mayor Bloomberg made special note that the Altima Hybrid is built in the U.S., while both the Crown Vic and the Impala are built in Canada.

In Green Test, Police Acquire Hybrid Patrol Cars (The New York Times)

Chrysler, Nissan Talk Joint Car Manufacturing

Chrysler LLC is officially exploring a manufacturing partnership with Nissan to produce the replacement for its Dodge Avenger and Chrysler Sebring midsize cars, known internally at Chrysler as Project D.

"The front-end [research and product design] of the project is done," Chrysler product development chief Frank Klegon said. "Now we're in the process of making the decisions for execution, such as where the platform comes from. We're talking to possible partners. Nissan is one."

The companies already have one joint manufacturing agreement in place, in which Nissan will produce a small car, based on its Versa compact, for Chrysler in South America, and Chrysler will supply Nissan with a full-size pickup, based on the new Dodge Ram 1500, for sale in the U.S. 

The platform candidate for Project D would likely be Nissan's midsize Altima sedan, one of the best-selling cars in the country.

Nissan Offering Zero Percent Financing on Five Models

Nissan has been offering cash back on its models sporadically for a while now, but the company has yet to really ramp up its financing offers the way some other companies have. That will change in November. Starting Nov. 4, Nissan will offer customers 0% financing for 36 months on its most popular models: the Rogue, Murano, Altima, Sentra and Versa hatchback. The offer ends Nov. 30.

What does that mean for buyers? Let’s take a Versa hatchback with a price of $16,210. Using our financing calculator, the difference in monthly payments between the current average financing rate for new cars, 6.6%, and a 0.0% one is about $40 a month – from $436.16 to $394.72 on a 36-month deal with $2,000 down for a total savings of $1,492. Obviously, the more expensive the car, the more 0% adds to the bottom line.

Nissan is also offering $199 per month lease deals on Rogue and Altima.

Check out a full list of current incentives on our Cars.com Incentives page.

2008 Nissan Altima Coupe: Meh

Two of Cars.com’s 20-something car buffs spent some time in the new Nissan Altima coupe and offer insight into how it performs for their demographic. Multimedia producer Eric Rossi and assistant editor Joe Bruzek have both driven test cars on tracks, but they’re more concerned with how they hold up on the street. Below, they rank the two-door Altima on these merits, on the scale outlined here.

Scale: Fail, Meh, Win, Epic Win

End-of-the-Model-Year Deals: Nissan

It's that time of year again: Manufacturers need to make room on dealer lots for new 2009 models, so the 2008s have to hit the road, and that means more incentives. We'll be highlighting deals from a number of manufacturers, along with notes on which models will change substantially for 2009.

Like many manufacturers, Nissan is offering huge cash-back offers on its trucks and SUVs — the Armada and Titan, specifically — but is also offering a good variety of cash-back deals on other 2008 models. A full list of 2008 Nissan deals from our incentives page is below:

• 2008 Altima: $1,000
• 2008 Armada: $5,000
• 2008 Frontier: $2,500
• 2008 Maxima: $2,500
• 2008 Pathfinder: $2,500
• 2008 Quest: $3,500
• 2008 Sentra: $1,000
• 2008 Titan: $5,000
• 2008 Xterra: $3,000
• 2008 Versa: $800

Those offers are available across a variety of regions we tested, but as always, be sure to use your own zip code to make sure offers apply in your region.The deals are good through Sept. 2.

The Maxima is all-new for 2009, and you can read our coverage of it here. The Frontier and Xterra receive some upgrades, but they aren't as significant. Check out the changes here.

Cars.com Video Recap: 2008 Suzuki Grand Vitara, 2008 Toyota Tundra and 2008 Nissan Altima

• 2008 Suzuki Grand Vitara: Senior editor Joe Wiesenfelder finds plenty of shortcomings in this offroad-capable SUV.
• 2008 Toyota Tundra: Joe sees how Toyota’s well-reviewed full-size pickup stacks up against its competitors.
• 2008 Nissan Altima: Editor Mike Hanley takes a look at a midsize family sedan that doesn’t sacrifice sportiness for practicality.

Midsize Cars Improve in Side Crash Tests

The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety recently concluded crash tests on seven midsize sedans and discovered that while they had improved in side crash tests, they still lacked enough head protection to earn top marks in rear crash tests.

Tested were the 2008 model year Chevrolet Malibu, Dodge Avenger, Infiniti G35, Kia Optima, Mitsubishi Galant (which was updated for the 2009 model year on sale now), Nissan Altima and Saturn Aura.

Only the Kia Optima did not earn the top score of “good” for side impact crash tests – it received the second highest nod, “acceptable.” However, the Optima was the only car in the test to receive a “good” score in rear crash tests.

The difficulty in scoring the top rank in rear tests involves head and neck protection for those rear-end collisions that produce whiplash. The IIHS claims that those types of accidents and injuries lead to losses of $8.5 billion annually. Most vehicles need to equip active head restraints to pass this test.

The Audi A3, A4, Honda Accord, Saab 9-3 and Subaru Legacy – with optional stability control – earned good ratings in all tests previously and earned the IIHS’ Top Safety Pick designation for midsize cars. 

A full chart of how the cars scored is below.