Watch out Tesla: the all-electric Nissan GT-R could be coming

We know the next Nissan GT-R will utilise hybrid technology in its quest to vanquish any performance car that dare tread in its path. But watch out Tesla, because Nissan chiefs have admitted a future GT-R (which may take styling clues from the Vision GT concept, pictured above) could also go completely electric.

As Nissan launches its upgraded Leaf, its electric vehicle push gaining momentum post-dieselgate, its European EV Director Gareth Dunsmore is on a mission to make zero emissions exciting. You’d expect nothing less from a man who helped make the original Juke R a reality.

“The rate of change over the last five years has been phenomenal,” Dunsmore told TG. “We can’t build an electric GT-R today. But do I want to? I’d love to. Will we be able to do that in the future? I can’t see a technical reason why we wouldn’t be able to implement electric vehicle technology in something like a performance vehicle.”

Nissan, of course, has history with this sort of e-thing, producing both the Leaf RC concept and the Zeod RC racer, which completed the first ever zero emission lap of Le Mans in its infamously short stint in the 2014 race.

“We’re not doing these things randomly,” continued Dunsmore. “We have a passion for it.”

“It would be a phenomenal place to go,” he said of an electrified GT-R. “But we’d need to do these things with credibility, take our expertise and know-how and make sure if we go to that step, it’s world beating, as the GT-R is today. It needs to be a world beater.”

For sheer oh-my-God-my-kidneys acceleration, the electric-only Tesla Model S – and its famous ‘Insane’ and ‘Ludicrous’ modes – is one of the few cars that comes close to Godzilla.

But it appears Nissan won’t let the Californians have a monopoly on e-cceleration. And happily, it seems the GT-R’s disregard for both expensive supercar exotica and internet comment box naysayers won’t be halted by Nissan’s quest to make electric vehicles the norm.

An electric GT-R might be unlikely much before the end of this decade, but it’s certainly under consideration.

Source: www.topgear.com