Nissan confirms ZEODs for the road

Expect to see a lot more of the ZEOD name, which at the moment is reserved for Nissan’s 2014 Le Mans experimental electric race car.

ZEOD, which stands for ‘zero emissions on demand’ will also be the green sub-brand of Nissan’s plug-in hybrid production cars that start to roll out in 2015.

Nissan has also linked the ZEOD RC (Racing Competition) -- which made its public debut at the Japanese round of the World Endurance Championship at Fuji Speedway over the weekend -- back to Nissan’s future product car plans via its electric power, recharging and safety strategies.

The petrol-electric hybrid will feature plug-in or wireless inductive recharging and will also race at Le Mans without rear-vision mirrors (Nissan says it’s the first car to do so for 100 years), instead using cameras from the company’s ‘Safety Shield’ system’s around-view monitor.

“Everything generates from the definition of the Nissan brand, which is innovation and excitement for everyone,” Nissan Executive Vice-President and global product planning boss Andy Palmer told motoring.com.au at Fuji. “Then basically you have got two fundamental pillars of Nissan; one is zero emission and one is zero fatality.

“We are bringing plug-in hybrids to market in 2015 ... ZEOD is the technology name for the plug-in hybrid, so obviously this is a way of making that hard-wired connection two years before we launch the car.

“Safety Shield is one of the foundation planks of autonomous driving. On a race car it is relatively cheap technology because you are taking the around-view monitor system from the road car. That allows you get to rid of the mirrors, which I think I am right in saying is the single biggest item of drag on a racing car these days.”

Giving green or alternative-energy vehicles specific sub-branding is hardly unique among car manufacturers. For instance, Audi uses e-tron to denote its various electrically assisted vehicles as well the R18 World Endurance Championship sports car.

The ZEOD RC is the 2014 Le Mans 24-hour ‘Garage 56’ experimental racer. It will go on and complete the rest of the WEC schedule and then form the technological basis for Nissan’s multi-year LMP1 WEC attack from 2015.

However, technical regulations dictate Nissan’s WEC racer will have to abandon the ZEOD RC’s unique triangular shape, although Palmer insists many of the learnings will carry over.

“It (the Nissan LMP1) will be interesting in powertrain terms, it will be interesting in form, it will be interesting in aerodynamics,” he said.

Nissan also ran at Le Mans in 2012 using a narrow front track triangular racing car dubbed the Deltawing. But Palmer said incorporating electric technology and safety systems were necessary for the green light to go again in 2014.

While it debuted at Fuji running on a temporary electric system only and could only complete short 120km/h runs down the front straight, at Le Mans the ZEOD RC’s petrol-electric series hybrid is expected to run one lap in every 12 purely as an EV. It will be required to generate 220kW and 300km/h speeds to complete the targeted sub-4:00 lap of the circuit.

The ZEOD RC does not have plug-in or wireless charging capability yet, but Nissan guarantees it will before the Le Mans 24-hour. However, during the race it will only recharge via regenerative braking.

Palmer said Nissan would like to use wireless inductive charging at Le Mans because it ties in with plans to introduce its Infiniti luxury brand’s LE model using the technology in 2015.

“Officially I would tell you the ZEOD RC is going to have a plug, but it is an interesting debate we were having an hour ago in the (Fuji) pitlane; whether you could use induction charging. That would be kind of cool. There is no reason you can’t.”

The big challenge is not the technology itself but adapting it to the motor racing environment. Nissan is considering a mobile wireless pad it can take to each race it contests and other events where the ZEOD RC will feature when its racing life concludes at the end of the 2014 WEC.

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