One of the recurring themes over the past few stagings of the Tokyo Motor Show has been electric mobility. Every major car manufacturer in attendance seems to have unveiled its own EV or hybrid for this year’s staging, including Nissan, which showed off its new pair of clean, electric-powered concepts, the Ariya and IMk.
Electrification is nothing new to this Japanese carmaker though. In fact, Nissan is one of the most established players in the game thanks to the Leaf (which is scheduled to arrive in the Philippines in 2020), the best-selling EV on the planet.
Now, considering the brand’s success in the EV business, as well as its participation in the Formula E racing series, you can’t help but wonder if legendary performance nameplates like the Nissan GT-R or 370z will trade in conventional oomph for greener and more efficient powertrains. By the sound of Nissan’s take on the idea, it seems like it’s a matter of when, not if.
“Our DNA has sports-car DNA. Not just the engineers but all of us,” Nissan executive vice president Asako Hoshino said during a TMS 2019 roundtable discussion attended by Top Gear Philippines. “The EV sports car is always, all the time, the discussion point when we discuss the future product lineup, not just the [370]z but also the GT-R.
“We are definitely discussing whether we can move to EV technology for sports cars. If someone introduces a compact sports-car EV, mass-production car, that has to be Nissan.”
That sounds about as close to a confirmation as anyone’s going to get out of the brand, at least for now. What do you think? Are you in favor of an electric Nissan GT-R and 370z, or will a shift in powertrain lead to a drop in appeal? Let us know in the comments.
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