Nissan BladeGlider Track Footage – Video

 

A clean slate was the starting point for this project, led by Francois Bancon, division general manager of Product Strategy and Product Planning at Nissan. “The goal was to revolutionize the architecture of the vehicle to provoke new emotions, provide new value and make visible for consumers how Zero Emissions can help redefine our conception of vehicle basics,” said Bancon.

 

 

BladeGlider’s shape alone, with its narrow front track, challenges the orthodoxy that has dominated the roads since the earliest days of the internal combustion engine. The revolutionary nature of the car is more than skin deep. New possibilities for the designers and engineers were opened up by the unique characteristics of electric vehicles.

BladeGlider has its conceptual roots in two aerial images: the soaring, silent, panoramic freedom of a glider and the triangular shape of a high performance “swept wing” aircraft.

It is therefore fitting that, in terms of engineering, BladeGlider’s developmental focus was aerodynamics: achieving low drag (cdA) while generating road-hugging downforce.