Powered-up Honda CR-Z races into Le Mans ahead of 24-hour contest

The Honda CR-Z will join the Nissan Leaf and a few other alternative-powered cars in the Le Mans Vers Le Futur demonstration preceding Saturday's start of the 24 Hours of Le Mans in France. The demonstration features the potential future of Le Mans, with less noise, less pollution and less cash spent.

The upgraded CR-Z gets a 200-hp version of the 1.5-liter engine, producing 175 lb-ft of torque. It keeps the six-speed manual transmission and the seven-kilowatt-hour lithium-ion battery of the stock car.

Honda unveiled the competition version of the CR-Z last year at the SEMA show in Las Vegas. Later, it was entered into the 25 Hours of Thunderhill race in San Francisco. The compact CR-Z finished second in its class.

In Europe, the car is used as a pace car for the Speed EuroSeries.

Honda says it developed the car to be tested in race conditions, in part to help solve problems that arise when running a hybrid race car. The CR-Z isn't certified by the FIA, so it will only appear in the prerace festivities.

Source;
http://www.autoweek.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article#ixzz1OmlLtEp1

More details on rumored 2013 Nissan GT-R hybrid

Is this ever a nice car!
If we told you there was a variant of the iconic Nissan GT-R putting out around 600 horsepower, gobs of weight-saving technology and fuel economy that can hit 25-30 mpg on the highway would you be interested? What if we told you that the added power came via the same 160 hp electric motor that rested beneath the beautiful sheetmetal of the Infiniti Essence concept at last year's Geneva Motor Show?

The crew at Inside Line are reporting that the hybrid-powered Nissan GT-R is a real possibility for production, complete with the current model's 3.8-liter twin-turbocharged V6 and a battery pack for greenification. Weight savings is of paramount importance, and Nissan plans to throw every trick in the book at the hybrid GT-R, although we'd wager that the gas-electric variant will still weigh more than the deceptively porky model in showrooms now. Of course, Nissan wouldn't be interested in a vehicle with less performance than the current model so any hybrid-equipped GT-R would have to at least match Godzilla's numbers.

With all that power comes great fiscal responsibility, so what would a GT-R hybrid cost? IL guesses $100,000 could be the price of entry, though Nissan could be looking for a little more coin than that. After all the GT-R Spec-V was rumored to cost quite a bit more and if you add a hybrid powertrain to Spec-V weight loss techniques, we could be looking at one very expensive green machine.

Source;
http://www.autoblog.com/2009/12/22/more-details-on-rumored-2013-nissan-gt-r-hybrid/