Come 27th September, Nissan will be pulling the covers off their new Nissan TeRRA SUV concept at the 2012 Paris Motor Show, which combines Nissan’s know hows about SUVs and Electric Vehicles.
Nissan is going to provide their TeRRA with an innovative 4×4 fuel-cell electric powertrain and lead the automotive pack into the zero-emissions era. The TeRRA isn’t primarily built for dealing with the great outdoors, but rather to address its relevance to urban life with it’s Juke-like visuals.
The TeRRA’s powertrain isn’t revolutionary; instead it’s the Nissan Leaf’s current electric propulsion system that powers the front wheels and each back wheel gets an electric motor each rear wheel when needed, resulting in an all-wheel drive system. And since there’s no drive-shaft leading to the rear, the cabin’s floor and underbody remains ideally flat.
Under the hood, Nissan’s hydrogen fuel cell stack will be found that’s flat, highly compact and able to provide a power density 3.35hp/L. The cost for these fuel-cells are now about 1/5 of what it used to cost in 2005, thanks to world prices of precious metals having fallen till current, which signals a good time to proceed with mass production of fuel-cell vehicles, once hydrogen becomes widely available.
The driver gets a unique-looking instrument cluster with a removable electronic tablet found on the console – much like Apple’s iPad and serves as an “intelligent key”. Once the tablet is docked in TeRRA, the tablet’s default view will display speed and other driving information. However, the view can be changed for entertainment, communications, navigation and other purposes
The TeRRA’s seating position is one that’s more than unique; positioned in a diagonal layout and rear passengers positioned higher than the front, so that everyone’s pretty much in visual contact and rear passengers are able to see what’s ahead rather than the static boring view of the rear head-rest.
All three passenger seats will be made foldable to reveal the flat cabin deck that’ll be perfect for carrying bikes, kayaks or even certain DIY Scandinavian furniture.
