Infiniti & Beyond

[Coligny]

Glad you got your sense of humour back, I was starting to think Chuck had taken over your account!

Awww... because you though I'm really serious when I put the Veyron in mah porpraganda...

If france wuz such a nice place I would not be in Toyohashi...
If french cars were so nice I would not be driving the cheapest ricer on the catalog.*
The fastest train in the world is useless when the company just gave up trying to run them on time.
And for the military stuff... we are starting to run out of banana dictatorship to sell them...
(* But I just putted me a DIY HID upgraded headlight from a nameless Chinese company. Best 9000 yens spent evar... I mean, evar except for them cheap overseas hookers... /car have plastic lense headlights, so from factory they have to put low power halogen to avoid melting... countryside driving you constantly check if your headlight are on and really bad or just off/started to bend the switch because there is no status indicator and I constantly tried to turn them MORE on...)

[matsuki]

YOU DO REALIZE that it exactly look like the front of the Pizzamobile ?

haha, the front needs a reworking but I actually do like back. Probably functional as well, don't know enough about it to tell.

[BigInJapan]

On the topic of craptastic French cars, I had one of these in the '80s.



It was cheap as dirt by the time I got it, but I guess the 6 or 7 Canuck winters before I got it took their toll on it, and the engine block cracked 3 or 4 months after I got it (the sun roof was a blast though).
It seems the Le Car is the AMC USA-made version of the Renault 5, so it would seem that AMC has to take the blame.

[legion]

We had a Renault 5, it rusted and fell apart even quicker than our Austin Allegro.

Citroen is another matter.

[Mike Oxlong]

A friend's father was French-Canadian, and drove a Peugeot. Back in the early '80s, it was one of the nicer cars I had ridden in up until that time.

[Coligny]

There is aRenault 5 in Toyohashi:



It was a nice expandabul city car... Renault was never really good at making social status cars... (well except for the sad Dacia 2000 official car of secret police of the Communist government led by Nicolae Ceauşescu in Romania.) The approach have always been that cars are tools either to move stuff and people or to win races... That's why their lineup have always been filled with hatchbacks... which are really not a welcomed configuration for executive cars... but awesum to carry bulky things... personnally i just don't "get" sedan... it's an aberration...

In other news... the Renault 5 might come back since the replacement Clio (Lutecia here) in its 4th generation is now 2 or 3 size bigger than the R5 was...

[2triky]

Infiniti Emerg-E sports-car hybrid unwrapped at Geneva motor show



By: Jake Lingeman on 3/06/2012

Infiniti revealed the Emerg-E sports-car concept on Tuesday at the Geneva motor show. The slick-looking coupe will have a pair of 201-hp Evo Electric motors that drive the rear wheels. The motors direct their power to a single-speed XTRAC transmission. Four inverters control the motors and the energy regeneration under braking. A lithium-ion battery sits behind the seats collecting power.

When the juice runs out, a 1.2-liter engine kicks in to charge up the battery. Infiniti worked with Lotus on the range extender. It produces 35 kilowatts of power at a peak of 3,500 rpm. Infiniti says the battery can provide 30 miles of range without using gasoline.

The Emerg-E has a lightweight, extruded-aluminum chassis with carbon-fiber body panels. That leads to a curb weight of 3,523 pounds. The car was developed with racing specialists Lola Composites in the United Kingdom. Infiniti says it will explore the use of the ultralight material for future vehicles.

Drag was reduced to 0.34 Cd with the flowing bodywork. Infiniti says that once downforce was taken care of, cooling became a problem in EV mode. The company added a number of subtle air intakes and extractors to correct the problem.

The Emerg-E was developed under the direction of Nissan design chief Shiro Nakamura. The project was partly funded by the U.K. government's Technology Strategy Board, whose mission is to expedite the use of low-carbon vehicles onto U.K. roads. The board provided Infiniti a chance to work with many innovative suppliers and OEMs. That was how Infiniti discovered that Lotus was working on a range extender and decided to collaborate.

The Emerg-E is the third of a trilogy of concept cars for the company, following the Essence and the Etherea. Infiniti says the three concepts embody three themes around which the company designs cars--energetic force, seductive aura and dignified intelligence.

Infiniti never planned for the Emerg-E to be a mid-engine car but relished the challenge when it came to package constraints and the distribution of weight.

"We wanted to make it elegant yet dynamic, to show graceful power," Nakamura said. "Midship cars are usually more crude; this is like silk wrapping over the wheels."

Photos from Geneva

[FG Lurker]

A whole 30 miles / 50km... This tech still has a long way to go.

[2triky]

A whole 30 miles / 50km... This tech still has a long way to go.

Yeah, that point stood out quite conspicuously.

[Coligny]

A whole 30 miles / 50km... This tech still has a long way to go.

Guys, it's a SERIAL hybrid... for the 30 miles, it's the same as using a prius in EV-only mode which in this case only provide very little range...

[2triky]

Guys, it's a SERIAL hybrid... for the 30 miles, it's the same as using a prius in EV-only mode which in this case only provide very little range...

While the Infiniti's electric only range can't be considered robust, it's a bit better than the Porsche 918 hybrid's 16 mile range on battery alone.



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