Nissan Middle East has announced a radical new concept, which will eventually revolutionize 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.
“Over the past two years we have been researching what elements make a vehicle such as the Nissan Patrol so well-suited to desert driving,” said engineer Joseph Rachid El Hachem, Desert Camel Power unit engineer. “Basically, we found that it comes down to the interplay between the vehicle’s weight, its velocity and its trajectory. Other factors including manoeuvrability, engine torque and of course the skill of the driver do come into play and cannot be discounted. However, if we standardise a vehicle’s approach speed and trajectory in a given environment, we can time how quickly it travels a set distance and subsequently factor in its weight to work out its Desert Camel Power.”
It’s a simple concept and one that can be applied with relative ease to test vehicles in the conditions typically found in the Arabian peninsula.
“In some ways, it is perhaps surprising that such a formula has not been developed before now, given the amount of time and energy the off-road community puts into making claims and counter-claims about what constitutes a good desert vehicle,” said Samir Cherfan, managing director Nissan Middle East. “However, it is typical of Nissan to tackle the issue head-on and take this ground-breaking first step. We are proud that the development work has focussed on Gulf countries. We are also confident that the concept will find widespread acceptance among both the leisure off-road community and those who live and work in areas where off-road capability in a vehicle is absolutely essential.”
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 Standardization 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 standardize 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.
“The arguments have raged for decades among off-road enthusiasts about which vehicle is the most capable in the desert and what makes it so,” said Cherfan. “Desert Camel Power is a means to scientifically measure and define a given vehicle’s fitness to take on the dunes, something which may at least go some way to settling those arguments. Desert Camel Power will also act as a touchstone for Nissan engineers going forward, as they seek, in particular, to build upon Patrol’s (Armada in the U.S.) unrivalled capabilities as a conqueror of the dunes.”
With its unbroken history of selling cars in the Gulf states dating back to the mid-1950s, Nissan’s commitment to the region is beyond doubt. This heritage is based on one simple, but deeply held, guiding principle: to bring products to this unique market that fulfil the requirements of all car buyers in what is one of the most extreme and challenging environments – for people and machines – on the planet.
