Filed under: Green, Nissan


If the Nissan GT-R isn't high tech enough for you, you might want to consider waiting around for the middle of the next decade. According to Autocar, Nissan is considering producing a sports car with a hydrogen fuel cell powertrain. The rationale behind the consideration is to commercialize the advanced drive system by offering in it a premium vehicle. With the hydrogen fuel cell powertrain fitted to either a sports or luxury car, it could also be packaged either with high-end features or high performance that would entice buyers to pay high prices.

Nissan recently became the first acknowledged automaker to run a fuel cell vehicle at the Nurburgring with its X-Trail FCV. While its time was nothing to get excited about, its worth remembering that fuel cell vehicles are electrically driven with the fuel cell converting hydrogen to electricity. The Tesla Roadster has clearly demonstrated that electric drive and high performance are not incompatible, so a fuel cell vehicle with a suitably size battery providing bursts of energy for accelerating as well as storing energy from regenerative braking could certainly be tuned for performance. Last year, Ford took a fuel cell-powered Fusion to over 200 mph at Bonneville so top speed is hardly an issue. If Nissan does go forward with such a vehicle, a decision would happen in early 2009, production beginning approximately five years later.

[Source: AutoCar]
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