2009 Nissan Armada Le on 2040-cars

Auto blog

Nissan withdraws from two races to focus on Le Mans

Nissan is making a huge bet and putting all of its chips on the 24 Hours of Le Mans for the race debut of the GT-R LM Nismo. The team will now skip the World Endurance Championship test at Paul Ricard in France later this month and also won't compete at the first two races of the season at Silverstone and Spa-Francorchamps. The team made the announcement through two tweets (embedded below). "Our main aim for this year was always Le Mans and we have decided to re-focus on that race," Darren Cox, Nissan Motorsport boss, said to Autosport. In the meantime, the company will keep testing the car in the US right up until the big race. The driver lineup and a GT-R Nismo for display will make an appearance at the season-opening round at Silverstone on April 12, though, according to Autosport. This isn't the first setback for the team. The GT-R LM suffered a failure of a "very minor" part during testing in early March at Sebring, and the team didn't have a spare with it. The car had run 68 laps over the preceding two days. The GT-R LM uses a powertrain unlike any other vehicle in its class. A twin-turbocharged V6 has front-mid-engine placement, and it's combined with electric motors making over 700 horsepower. In total, the system generates a claimed output of over 1,250 horsepower. With no competitive racing under its belt before Le Mans, the Nissan is definitely going to be a car to watch in the big event this year. This content is hosted by a third party. To view it, please update your privacy preferences. Manage Settings. This content is hosted by a third party. To view it, please update your privacy preferences. Manage Settings. Related Video:

Ghosn: Low oil prices won't hurt EVs much

Carlos Ghosn might be the most unflappable automotive CEO around. Despite lower gas prices and signs that these prices do impact green vehicle sales, the CEO of the Renault-Nissan Alliance was at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland this weekend saying that people will continue to buy electric vehicles. "I don't think it is going to be slowing down," he said. "The people who are buying mainly for economic reasons may be deterred from it, but you have plenty of consumers buying EV for other reasons. On top of this, even though the price of oil is unpredictable – nobody has predicted last year that we would be at this level of oil price today and nobody knows where oil price will be next year or two years down the road – but what is predictable is that the regulation on emissions is going to get tougher in the various markets where we are present. So, our EV strategy is here not only to face too much dependence on oil or the cost of oil, but also to allow us to meet the very stringent regulations on emissions that are happening and will be happening in the future. So I can bet you that more and more car makers are coming to EVs and they're going to continue to build and sell EVs, even though the price of oil is coming down." The bit about oil prices and electric vehicles starts at 1:35 into the video. News Source: Nissan via YouTube Green Nissan Renault Emissions Gas Prices Electric Videos oil prices

Nissan heading to Le Mans with 1,250-hp GT-R LM Nismo [w/videos]

Endurance racing faced a pivotal year in 2012. The FIA and the ACO had just come together to form the new World Endurance Championship when Peugeot announced it was shuttering its team, leaving only one manufacturer to contest the top LMP1 class of the nascent series. Fortunately Toyota was able to advance its program to join Audi in the WEC and at the 24 Hours of Le Mans. Two seasons later Porsche joined the fight, and now Nissan has formally announced its return to Le Mans as well. Revealed in Nissan's With Dad spot during the Super Bowl, the Japanese automaker is set to join the grid with the innovative GT-R LM Nismo you see here. It's a hybrid just like the challengers from Audi, Porsche and Toyota, but instead of a mid-engine/rear-drive setup, Nissan's oddball challenger places its engine in the front, driving the front wheels. The 3.0-liter twin-turbocharged V6 is mated to a five-speed sequential gearbox and produces upwards of 550 horsepower on its own, but is mated to an electric Energy Recovery System that kicks in over 700 additional horses for a combined hybrid output exceeding 1,250 hp. That could make Nissan's the most powerful LMP1 on the grid, while still complying with the fuel flow limits outlined in the rulebook that gives participating constructors the latitude to toy with different configurations. Both powertrain components are mounted under the long nose of the oddly styled prototype, behind the canopy of the rearward cockpit that may give it a similar profile to the DeltaWing prototype and subsequent ZEOD RC. But the unconventional GT-R LM Nismo is also innovative in its own way. The front-drive configuration means that the Nissan prototype actually has wider tires up front than in the back, and also allowed for a drastically different approach to aerodynamics. Instead of testing it out at a handful of events in its first season, with the GT-R LM, Nissan will contest the full 2015 FIA World Endurance Championship, starting with the 6 Hours of Silverstone in April and including the 24 Hours of Le Mans in June.