Hasta La Gadget!

The first season of Nissan GT Academy has completed and Nissan and Sony have announced that they have teamed up to bring a second season of Nissan GT Academy competition to the US. The Nissan GT Academy is a competition that takes participants who win online races in a Grand Turismo special series and pits them against each other for the chance to drive a real Nissan racecar.

The second season of GT Academy will begin airing on November 1 on Spike TV. The first of the six episodes will air on Thursday, November 1 11:30 PM Eastern 10:30 PM central. The remaining five episodes of the series will air the same time each Thursday night.

People who want watch that don’t get Spike TV on cable or satellite services will be able to watch each episode via the Nissan YouTube channel the following Monday after the episodes air on Spike TV. Episodes will also air on MTV 2 a week after the original airdate on Spike TV. Like the original series, there’ll be an online competition to find the top online racers.

Those online racers will then be whittled down to the fastest 16 that will be invited to the Silverstone Racing complex in England for mental and physical challenges in addition to track driving in a variety of vehicles. So far, drivers from GT Academy have done very well in real life racing with the first season winner, Lucas Ordonez, winning the P2 Class at the 24 Hours of Le Mans.

Nissan and Sony to offer second season of Nissan GT Academy is written by Shane McGlaun & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

When it comes to the kind of upholstery in your vehicle, most folks would figure out that leather is the epitome of luxury. After all, it provides that nice, warm and soft feeling as you sink your entire body right into it after a long day at the office. Those who are not that well off, or if the vehicle is of a lower grade, regular cloth seats will have to do. Nissan, however, have tasked their engineers to develop something which might just sound creepy – to create synthetic materials which replicate the feel and touch of a human finger.

It seems that Nissan’s engineers are taking this route because they figured out that the kind of sensation which provides humans with most luxurious feeling is, of all things, our own human skin. After all, we respond to another human’s touch in a totally different manner compared to other sensations, and the four key factors which were looked into included flexibility, temperature, smoothness and moistness of a human finger. We do wonder what kind of color will the new interior look like, and perhaps this can also be an offshoot for future robots that are in search for synthetic human skin.

By Ubergizmo. Related articles: Nissan dreams of accident free cars, 2013 Nissan Altima to come with a self-cleaning rear-facing camera that does more than just help you reverse park,

We’re all at least somewhat familiar with fly-by-wire, the electronic piloting system found in most modern planes. Nissan wants to bring the same tech to cars, leaving behind the purely mechanical solutions currently used to take turns in your four-wheeler. The first automobiles to come equipped with steer-by-wire would be luxury sedans from Infiniti. Other companies have incorporated the tech into concept vehicles, but Nissan would be the first to stick it in a production model. The company plans to have the first drive-by-wire cars in consumer garages by the end of next year, with an eye towards a future in which you drive from the back seat using a joystick. Of course, the lack of direct feedback as your tires turn over the road may lead some to cling tight to their mechanical steering apparatus, though, moving to a digital steering system should lead to better handling vehicles.

Filed under: Transportation

Nissan to offer steer-by-wire systems in some Infiniti cars originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 17 Oct 2012 11:40:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |  Reuters  | Email this | Comments

Nissan Motor Co has announced that some of its vehicles will be getting new steering technology that does away with traditional mechanical and hydraulic systems. The new steering system will use steer-by-wire technology. The technology will change the direction of the wheels in relation to the steering wheel inside the car using electronics rather than mechanical means.

Some of the first Nissan Motor Co vehicles to get the technology will be in its high-end luxury Infiniti line. Nissan says that the technology will pave the way for future cars that can be steered using joysticks rather than a traditional wheel and cars that can be program to avoid crashes automatically. Steer-by-wire technology would forward data on position from the steering wheel of the car to the wheels using electronic means.

A computer-controlled unit with an actuator would control how much directional change was needed in the wheels to keep the car along the path the driver wants. Nissan says that the electronic steering system would have a failsafe clutch. That failsafe would link the wheels mechanically to the steering wheel inside the car in the event of an emergency such as the electrical system failure.

Automotive manufacturers have been increasingly going to electronic systems rather than mechanical and hydraulic systems. Many automakers already using throttle by wire systems rather than mechanical throttle linkages. There are also multiple vehicles on the road that use electronic power steering rather than traditional hydraulic power steering. Aircraft have been using control systems “by-wire” rather than mechanical or hydraulic systems for years. Nissan says that the electronic system is able to respond to signals more quickly than traditional systems because electronic signals travel faster. The first vehicles using the new steering system are expected in the next three to five years.

[via The Droid Guy]

Nissan is reportedly considering a budget version of the Leaf electric car, with hopes that a low-spec model could light a fire under dreary US sales. The new addition to the range, set to go on sale in the US in February 2013 according to Automotive News, would lack more expensive features like LED highlights and integrated navigation, as well as see changes under the metal.

Those changes would include the relocation of some of the components used, along with cheaper versions of them. Nissan will apparently be asking its suppliers to cut their costs, though it’s unclear whether new parts or simply cheaper versions of existing parts will be introduced.

Nissan’s existing model spec levels, the SV and SL, will continue to be offered in the 2013 model year, and there’s no word on whether their current pricing – $36,050 and $38,100 respectively – will be carried over. Similarly, pricing for the cheaper entry-level car is also unknown.

Costs will also be pared back  by shifting production, with US cars now being manufactured in Nissan’s Tennessee plant; until recently, the Leaf has been produced in Japan and shipped to the US.

A combination of pricing and uncertainty among consumers around electric cars has added up to mediocre sales. Nissan aimed to sell 20,000 Leaf cars in 2012, but has so far sold just 5,212. Sales in 2011 were just 9,674.

[via Motortrend]

Cheap 2013 Nissan Leaf rumored: Cut-spec to drive EV sales is written by Chris Davies & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.