Infiniti has released a teaser sketch of its upcoming electric vehicle. Revealed at the opening of Infiniti’s second UK dealership, at Piccadilly in London, the single image previews a ‘luxury’ EV that Infiniti promises will be launched in 2013.
What do we know about Infiniti’s new luxury EV?
Underneath it’s essentially a Nissan Leaf, but as you can see from the sketch it won’t look like a re-nosed Nissan. ‘It must express Infiniti,’ Nissan and Infiniti design director Shiro Nakamura told CAR. ‘It must be an Infiniti. It must create an emotional response.’ However, Nakamura also admitted to CAR that the company’s first EV platform is quite similar to that of conventional petrol and diesel cars, so the first generation of EVs will also appear quite conventional.
CAR understands that the final design for Infiniti’s EV will be signed off in the next few months, but we’ll also see a few more concrete hints at the future look of the car as Nakamura plans to reveal more concept cars with the ‘Dynamic Adeyaka’ design language over the next couple of years.
The Infiniti EV will seat five people, though it’s not yet clear whether it will have a saloon- or hatchback-style boot. As well as the unique styling, Infiniti project design director Takashi Nakajima revealed to CAR that the electric powertrain would be given a performance boost as befits a company that sees BMW as its key rival. We also hear that although the Nissan Leaf will be built in Sunderland and Japan, the Infiniti EV won’t be put together anywhere but Japan.
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