Nissan vows lighter future models

MRichter

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Just saw this news about Nissan's lightweight program. This bodes well for the Z (hopefully).

Nissan Vows To Enforce A Strict Diet For Future Models

As far as New Year's resolutions go, losing weight is a common one and now it's become an automakers' favorite, too.

Nissan is keen on sticking by its own; that is, work hard to significantly reduce the weight of its passenger car range this year and beyond.

The "Lightweighting Program" is set to produce a pioneering prototype material structure, meant to be used in the floor of their future models. In order to achieve this, Nissan will use the types of materials and techniques that are widely used in motorsport as well as the aerospace industry.

Even before that, Nissan's new approach has resulted in a 90kg (198 lbs) weight loss for the X-Trail and 40kg (88 lbs) for the new Qashqai.

"The next 12 months promise to bring not resolutions, but revolutions, as the brand marches forward with yet more ‘Innovation That Excites’. This program is another demonstration of our commitment to developing the cars of tomorrow, today.", said the brand's VP of vehicle design & development David Moss.

"We know the cars of the future will need to be lighter, stronger and more efficient, that is why we are launching our prototype program in collaboration with research and industry bodies across the UK. It intends to produce a new manufacturing process that will revolutionize the industry."

With these efforts, Nissan is looking to improve performance, fuel consumption and counteract the weight of the increasing amount of technology being built into modern-day vehicles.

http://www.carscoops.com/2016/01/nissan-vows-to-enforce-strict-diet-for.html


 

350ZZZ

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Yessss! My prayers have been answered. Every other manufacturer seemed to be focusing on weight reduction but I hadn't seen much from Nissan on this until now. The Z35 is probably still far enough out in development to benefit from anything that comes of this Lightweighting Program.
 

Ranma

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Good news. Maybe the timing of this program and the next Z model is not a coincidence?
 

Ultima

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Good news. Maybe the timing of this program and the next Z model is not a coincidence?
Yea just hope it doesn't make it that much more expensive. I won't disagree the Z needs to go on a diet but it might make sense to put these materials into its higher volume cars and have the Z benefit from the economies of scale later. Whatever they do I think Nissan realizes it needs to be more competitive price wise.
 

chromeX

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Good news. Maybe the timing of this program and the next Z model is not a coincidence?
For all we know the Z could be a few years out still. Might as well pack all the innovation they can since no one is talking about the next gen car yet.
 

ThreeSeven

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I'm sure Nissan can engineer the weight loss on the future z35 without moving the car into a price bracket where it can't compete.
 

350ZZZ

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Yea just hope it doesn't make it that much more expensive. I won't disagree the Z needs to go on a diet but it might make sense to put these materials into its higher volume cars and have the Z benefit from the economies of scale later. Whatever they do I think Nissan realizes it needs to be more competitive price wise.
If it makes it more expensive then I don't think they'd put the technology / materials into the car. Sports coupes are already a hard sell and not like the Z is flying off the shelves at current pricing as it is.
 

sun tzu

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Maybe we'll see this debut first on the 2018 GT-R. Hopefully by then we'll have SOMETHING on the Z.
 

rebarnes

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I'm really curious how Nissan will end up shredding weight on the car besides using lighter materials.
 
 





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