Green Supercars

An Oxymoron.  A contradiction.  An Irony.  A Juxtaposition.  Yes all of the above.  And therefore, absolutely perfect for me.  The Audi R8 eTron is beautiful.  Fisker is making some loud headlines.and electric or hybrid variants of cars are popping up all over the place.  I referenced some time ago that the financial crisis might just be the kick in the proverbial ingenuity pants to cause some meaningful change in industrial processes and products.  And the shift towards efficiency and better utilization of our treasured and scarce resources is nothing but a good thing.  And as with so many other aspects in our lives, the end result is much much more than the sum of the parts.


The Nissan GT-R is legendary.  The R35 variant has built on the legend.  And now it would seem that Nissan/Infiniti have another Ace up their sleeve.

More details on rumored 2013 Nissan GT-R hybrid

by Chris Shunk (RSS feed) on Dec 22nd, 2009 at 7:23PM

2010 Nissan GT-R – Click above for high-res image gallery

If we told you there was a variant of the iconic Nissan GT-R putting out around 600 horsepower, gobs of weight-saving technology and fuel economy that can hit 25-30 mpg on the highway would you be interested? What if we told you that the added power came via the same 160 hp electric motor that rested beneath the beautiful sheetmetal of the Infiniti Essence concept at last year's Geneva Motor Show?

The crew at Inside Line are reporting that the hybrid-powered Nissan GT-R is a real possibility for production, complete with the current model's 3.8-liter twin-turbocharged V6 and a battery pack for greenification. Weight savings is of paramount importance, and Nissan plans to throw every trick in the book at the hybrid GT-R, although we'd wager that the gas-electric variant will still weigh more than the deceptively porky model in showrooms now. Of course, Nissan wouldn't be interested in a vehicle with less performance than the current model so any hybrid-equipped GT-R would have to at least match Godzilla's numbers.

With all that power comes great fiscal responsibility, so what would a GT-R hybrid cost? IL guesses $100,000 could be the price of entry, though Nissan could be looking for a little more coin than that. After all the GT-R Spec-V was rumored to cost quite a bit more and if you add a hybrid powertrain to Spec-V weight loss techniques, we could be looking at one very expensive green machine.