Last year, we got a glimpse at what a future Nissan GT-R could look like in the form of the Hyper Force concept. But, as we know all too well, concept cars are just that – concepts – however immaculate they may seem. At the London ePrix, Formula E’s Championship finale, CT sat down with Team Principal Tomasso Volpe and Chief Planning Officer Ivan Espinosa to investigate the reality behind the rumours:
Tomasso Vulpe Addresses the Media at the London E-Prix
“If you ask me, Tommaso Volpe, yes. If you ask me as a company, we don’t have any plan confirmed yet, but, for sure, the ambition 2030 is – I mean, it’s an ambitious plan…
And, so when you consider where the company is going, what I would say is that if there would be a new GT-R of course it will go in that direction. Sure. So, we can say that it would be at least electrified if not fully electric, but there is no plan confirmed yet.”
Evidently, Volpe was hesitant to give concrete comments beyond his own opinion, yet still optimistic about the brand’s ability to capitalise on its motorsport success – success that he has spearheaded with the Formula E team’s uptick in performance in 2024; lead driver Oliver Rowland went on to take victory that Sunday in the season’s final race round.
If Volpe can speak only for his own aspirations and not the plans of the brand itself, what does Espinosa think of the electric GT-R project’s potential as well as his Team Principal’s comments? We asked him (with Volpe sat directly to his left) if he could further elucidate any details.
Volpe and Espinosa discuss the future of the Nissan GT-R
Here’s what Espinosa said:
“…The main effort today is in making the building blocks to be able to [be] making a car. Again, making a hypercar EV is very difficult. Because of the weight, because of the energy that you need to put in the battery.
And then also the performance needs to be good enough to do, for example, a couple of laps in Nordschleife, in the Nürburgring, otherwise, you know, the guys will just not buy it.
Again, I would rather spend a good amount of time making something that is really good, that people can really use. …it’s not that there is no project. There is a project. Once I have the battery ready, and I can very easily do the thing around the battery. The challenge today is the batteries.”
Little more than a hint of a hint, maybe nothing more than we already knew, but more than nothing itself. Volpe and Espinosa both seemed energised by the thought of electrifying the brand’s supercar killer if also a little humoured by the persistence of my line of questioning which put Volpe’s comments from the day prior directly to his superior in his presence.
2024 Nissan GT-R NISMO – USA
Either way, it’s positive to hear talk of the model having a future. Though as Espinosa was quick to point out, modern C-suite management is often a question of opportunity cost, one project takes resources away from another and it’s often the jack-of-all-trades, master of none SUVs that are most likely to reach the market. Auterish leadership and an inspired creative vision will be needed to push an electrified GT-R project through the barriers of market analytics and risk management.
