Nissan is pushing strong in their development to make the NISMO Leaf a legit, pedal to the metal racer that is not to be made fun of. With such aim, the NISMO Leaf had recently saw some track action against a number of EVs at the Super GT EV League. In the battle of EV supremacy that saw rivals silently zooming in Leafs and Teslas, the NISMO Leaf had managed to secure a respectable second place in the 50km race.
The number 23 NISMO Leaf was piloted by Tsugio Matsuda, who described that driving the NISMO Leaf is no different from driving the GT cars that he used to drive in the Super GT series. Of course, in making the NISMO Leaf to perform better than the ones cruising on the roads, a couple of changes needed to be done. Although the whole powertrain of the NISMO is just the same as the consumer cars, both the motor and inverter was moved to the back, effectively making it a rear-wheel drive car. And in order to improve the NISMO’s handling, the battery pack is mounted midship.
With all these improvements, the NISMO Leaf proved to be a fast and effective racing EV, although they would need to face the challenges posed by the speedy Tesla Roadster. The Tesla packs a much larger motor, giving it the advantage of straight-line acceleration. Even so, both the Tesla and the NISMO Leaf complements each other as while the Tesla triumphs in the straights, the NISMO Leaf has a great advantage going through the corners due to its lighter weight.
And unlike the conventional races, this EV race is a bit tricky as the drivers would also need to keep an eye on the power consumption. “It was very difficult to lower the consumption of electricity, even though I was mindful of saving energy”, said Matsuda after the race. He also added that during the final part of the race, the Tesla was losing speed, but the gap that the Tesla had created along the way made it impossible for him to overtake before crossing the checkered flag.
