Nissan's Newly-Announced 1,300 HP Electric GTR With Solid State Batteries Has More Power Than The Amazing Audi E-Tron GT Performance

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The announced Nissan electric GTR with solid-state batteries looks to be a game-changer. It will transform the GTR from the useful and extremely fast car it is into true supercar territory. I can't hardly wait.

While you can argue the Nissan GTR is a road car, I see it most of the time on drag strips and not on track days. I'm not really sure why, as it is a great road car, but man, is it a beast on a drag strip. However, I’ve also seen it lose a lot to Teslas on Drag strips, which is why the announcement of the Electric GTR with 1,300 HP is so exciting. Nissan is taking the fight back to Tesla.

This car would have even more power than the amazing new Audi E-Tron GT Performance, which has 912 HP and does 0-60 in a blazing 2.5 seconds. It has a decent range at 350 miles, but the GTR should have a range well above that given the potential for this new battery technology.

Solid State Battery Advantages

Solid State Batteries, which swap out the liquid electrolytic solution for a more reliable solid electrolyte. This results in the following advantages:

  1. Solid-state Batteries should enjoy a seven-fold increase in density, which results in a doubling of the unit's energy capacity. For instance, in the same size battery the above Audi E-Tron GT Performance uses, which bets 350 miles of range, a Solid-State Battery could supply 700 miles of range.
  2. Solid-state batteries have a much longer useful life as they don’t degrade as quickly. We don’t yet know what that means for car batteries, but it can nearly double the useful battery life in smartphone batteries.
  3. Solid-state Batteries are safer and far less likely to have the cascading failure problem that typical Lithium-Ion batteries have. This means they can be run hotter, and the risk of the kinds of hard-to-put-out fires that Lithium-Ion batteries can create is nearly eliminated. (They might be eliminated, but we won’t know for sure until the batteries are in the market.)
  4. Because solid-state Batteries can handle heat far better than lithium-ion batteries, they should charge far faster than older technology. Potentially, we could be looking at an 80% charge at around the same time it would have taken to fill up a gas car. Again, we won’t have final performance numbers until the batteries ship because getting that speed means much heavier cabling, and we know how the bean counters (finance guys) try to avoid expensive parts. (Granted we’ll also need to fix some of the charging issues we currently have.)

In short, you end up with a performance car that can run several days at a distance (depending on how far you drive) without needing to recharge (how often do you drive over 700 miles in a day?), could be easily charged at the track on a track day (assuming the track has an available high-power Level 3 charger), and would still pretty much dust anything else, including a Tesla, that someone else brought. (though, to be fair, the forever-coming Tesla Roadster with the rocket boosters will likely be faster-Musk is saying a sub-1-second 0-60 which, I’m pretty sure, would be deadly to an old guy like me).

Electric GTR

The old GTR was one of the most practical supercars ever released. It has a back seat, decent luggage space, and, for its level of performance, a reasonable price of around $120. When I was in a pool of drivers driving Aston Martins (DB-9), Lamborghinis, Ferraris, Bentleys, Lotus, and other exotics, it was the GTR that knocked my socks off (and I was so disappointed in the Aston Martin; it drove like an old Lincoln when I was expecting a James Bond vibe).

The electric GTR should dust the old design, and it should be far cheaper to operate, well except going through tires more quickly, as Torque and Power, given that electric cars are already very hard on tires, will chew up tires quickly. But then with that kind of performance, what would you expect?

The Electric GTR should be a game changer when it arrives (assuming it arrives) in 2028. Still, by that time, there will be several electric cars with this technology, and the Chinese car makers are moving more quickly than the Japanese car makers right now, so there is a risk that it might not be competitive against its Chinese rivals.

Still, the idea of an electric GTR with this range and performance would be awesome, and the initial renderings are growing on me. The second half of this decade will see an impressive number of over-the-top electric cars. The only question is, can we handle this level of performance? I have my doubts.

Rob Enderle is a technology analyst covering automotive technology and battery developments at Torque News. You can learn more about Rob on Wikipedia, and follow his articles on Forbes, on X, and LinkedIn.