Nissan Middle East has announced a radical new concept, which will eventually revolutionise the way vehicles are evaluated for desert performance. Developed by Nissan engineers, “Desert Camel Power” uses a scientifically proven formula to determine, in an accurately measurable and reproducible way, how a given vehicle will perform in typical desert off-road conditions.
Nissan has created Desert Camel Power to help bring clarity to the endless discussions about the inherent off-road capabilities of SUVs in the Gulf market. Horsepower alone is not enough to perform well in desert conditions, but just as horsepower can be calculated scientifically, so can Desert Camel Power, thereby raising the prospect of an at-a-glance indication of a vehicle’s desert fitness.
Naturally, any unit of measurement requires a clear definition, which in the case of power outputs requires the development of a scientific mathematical formula. Nissan engineers got together scientists working in the field of metrology (the scientific study of measurement) to both define and find ways to measure Desert Camel Power using methods that are universally reproducible. It took time, effort, inspiration and no lack of mathematical genius to come up with the formula which can be applied to any off-road vehicle, anywhere in the world that positions itself as being desert-capable. That formula can be rendered as:
CP = velocity x weight x sin (trajectory)
The scientific paper resulting from this collaboration and the formula itself have been presented to ESMA (Emirates Authority for Standardisation and Metrology), which has been highly receptive to the idea of this entirely new unit of measurement. ESMA is fully on board to undertake the requisite testing which will help to standardise the new unit, first on a regional and eventually on a global basis.
Desert Camel Power will in future be used in all Nissan Middle East showrooms and marketing literature to define the desert capabilities Nissan’s SUV line-up.
