A DeltaWing for the rest of us?
The eyes of the world are on Rio de Janeiro as the 2016 Olympic Games are taking place at the seafront city, and Nissan is choosing the venue to unveil their unique BladeGlider electric sports car.
Instead of just a concept vehicle to spark our imaginations and perhaps elevate Nissan’s image in our minds, the Japanese automaker brought along a working prototype of the unique narrow front, wide rear car.
Ever since Nissan partnered with the team behind the DeltaWing racing car in 2012, they have experimented with bringing the shape to passenger vehicles with a concept first shown in 2013. Since then, however, news has all but halted on its possible development until now.
But, for whatever reason, Nissan chose 2016 to take the 3-seater BladeGlider off the backburner and reinvigorate its ambition for “An agile, efficient EV that would provide new dimensions of driving fun and excitement - a car that would ‘glide’, thanks to the near-silent performance of its electric powertrain and aerodynamic shape.”
The prototype seen here doesn’t differ much from the one seen 3 years ago, albeit refined further and made to adapt to Nissan’s current electric powertrain technologies with help from Williams Advanced Engineering. It keeps the dramatic rear-hinged dihedral doors, and now has a roof that offers open-top fun with roll-over protection – but no immediately obvious way to protect it from the inevitable rainstorm.
Powering the 1300kg BladeGlider are dual 130kW electric motors, each feeding a rear wheel to allow for a combined output of 200kW and a hulking 707Nm of torque for a sub-5-second 0-100km/h sprint time and 190km/h top speed. The car’s unique shape makes it very aerodynamic and stable at high speed and in the corners. Nissan even added torque vectoring to improve mid-corner speed and overall agility. And there’s even a drift mode.
The BladeGlider is a traditional EV in the sense that it is entirely battery powered, and within its compact body a five-module lithium-ion 220kW battery is housed. Nissan is keeping the maximum range figure to itself, however.
We suspect that given its smaller dimensions and positioning as an agile recreational vehicle, Nissan ran into space and weight constraints concerning the battery relatively early on.
The BladeGlider’s interior is nearly as futuristic as the rest of the car, with wheel-mounted controls and two in-cabin screens that substitute for the lack of side mirrors as they would upset aerodynamics. The two rear passengers will get ample legroom thanks to its unique seating layout, with four-point safety harnesses for each occupant and seats made from a blend of fabric and epoxy resin coating that’s both comfortable and grippy.
For more on Nissan vehicles, including pricing and specifications, check out our Showroom.
