LEAF the petrol at home this race weekend
- Category: Other News
- Published on Monday, 18 April 2011 13:17
- Written by Nicholas Smith
- Hits: 146
-
-
Following the successful launch of their LEAF electric vehicle, Nissan have turned their sights on the world of Motorsport. The company have teamed up with premiere Nissan tuners, NISMO to prepare the Nissan LEAF NISMO RC.
RC here does not stand for Remote Control, instead, the car pictured here is a Race Car.
Inspired by the LEAF road car, the racer gets its headlamps and tail lamps, its all electric ethos and its name. Any more than that is a brand new machine from big front splitter to driver adjustable rear wing.
The body is made of three pieces, just like a Le Mans Prototype and looses two doors compared to the road car. That's because the rear seats of the car have been replaced with the battery pack, inverter and electric motor. Drivetrain is based on the LEAF road car but has been tweaked for motorsport. 107hp and 207lb-ft are available from standstill in the race variant.
Testing gives the car a 0-62 time of 6.85 seconds and a top speed of 93, making the car more suited to short and twisty tracks where top speed is not the most important thing. The battery can be charged from empty to 80% in 30 minutes using the quick charger and quick charging port. Range on a fully charged set of Lithum-Ion batteries is around 20 minutes of racing.
The car is officially unveiled at the New York Auto Show on 20th April this year but we are struggling to figure out what it would be used for. It could run in the new EV Cup, but races there are 20-30 minutes long so it would run out of juice before the end of the race. It could go touring car racing I suppose, but the BTCC cars hit 125mph down the Crainer Curves at Donnington Park, so it would be religated to the back of the field.
Not to mention that the car would run out of juice here too, as soon as the safety car is deployed the race would take too long and the driver would be in the pits getting charged up again.
