Nissan BladeGlider concept puts an electric wing on the road

Born from a desire to take open-wheel racing into the 21st century, the DeltaWing race car has struggled along for the past few years, searching for a niche to demonstrate its fuel-saving attributes. No automaker has embraced its design more than Nissan, which has hired the DeltaWing's designer for its own experimental race cars. Today, Nissan revealed it's considering ways to make a wing-shaped electric sports car more than a track toy.

Set for a Tokyo Motor Show unveiling later this month, Nissan says the three-seat BladeGlider concept combines "both a proposal for the future direction of Nissan electric vehicle development and an exploratory prototype of an upcoming production vehicle." Built from a carbon-fiber frame, the meter-wide front performs the same trick as the DeltaWing — reducing aerodynamic drag to unheard-of levels for greater efficiency, while allowing the rest of the body to generate downforce for better grip.