Nissan won't be borrowing any of Mercedes engines, those are all rumors are heresay. The Daimler alliance is about sharing EV technologies, Daimler has no in house EV technology so they are going to utilize Nissans. Nissan also wants to maximize its production of its new battery technology to recoupe development costs and be considered the industry leader in EV production. Nissan produces more V6s at a cheaper price then Mercedes can, Nissans V6s are more potent, fuel efficient, and reliable. Nissans V6s have been class leading for many years now, no reason to "downgrade" to a Mercedes engine.
Nissan won't use the VR has its cost of production is to high(its partly hand built), the Z will continue to use a mass produced V6 similar to whats found in other future Nissan vehicles. The VR is also meant to be "special" in a way by only being found in the GTR, putting it in another vehicle would take away some of the uniqueness of Nissans supercar.
I would expect Nissan to adopt direct injection on their next generation V6s. They very well may continue to evolve the VQ line as it has largely been a success for Nissan both on the cost efficient side of things as well as the power/fuel consumption side. I don't for see displacement getting much if any larger for Nissans V6s as the CAFEs fuel economy standards are only getting stricter. Direct injection would help fuel economy and torque production without increasing displacement Nissan is likely to incorporate their "DIG-T" technology found in the new MR16DDT engine in the Juke. DIG-T stands for Direct Injected Gasoline Turbo-charged, Nissans new MR16DDT has proved that this technology is both fuel efficient, good for making power, and cost efficient. I'd expect to see displacement in the 3.0L-3.8L range with something similar to the DIG-T configuration.
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