DUBAI 16 April 2017: Japanese automaker announced the introduction of ‘Desert Camel Power’, a new unit to evaluate vehicles for desert performance.
The Emirates Authority For Standardisation and Metrology (Esma), is collaborating with Nissan Middle East to undertake more tests on vehicles, according to Khalaf Al Hammadi, head of Esma’s Standards Department.
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 off-road desert conditions.
Nissan created Desert Camel Power to help bring clarity to the endless discussions about the inherent off-road capabilities of SUVs in the Gulf market. Nissan’s new concept will eventually revolutionise the way vehicles are evaluated for desert performance.
“The focus is now on undertaking more tests in the UAE desert to determine the performance of vehicles in an unusual environment. The camel power would be adopted at a later stage as a national standard for all vehicles. It will be presented to the standardisation authority of the Gulf Co-operation Council as well as global regulators,” Al Hammadi said.
Implemented by Year-end
Al Hammadi expects the new standard to be officially introduced by the end of this year.
Horsepower alone is not enough to perform in desert conditions. However, just as horsepower can be calculated scientifically, so can Desert Camel Power, which raises the prospect of an at-a-glance indication of a vehicle’s desert fitness, according to Nissan Middle East.
Desert Camel Power will be used in all Nissan Middle East showrooms and marketing literature to define the desert capabilities of Nissan’s SUV line-up.
Any unit of measurement requires a clear definition, and in the case of power outputs, it requires the development of a scientific mathematical formula, according to Nissan Middle East.
Nissan engineers collaborated with 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, Nissan said recently.
The Formula
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, which has been highly receptive to the idea of this entirely new unit of measurement, Nissan Middle East said in early March.
Nissan said it had created Desert Camel Power to help bring clarity to the endless discussions about the inherent off-road capabilities of SUVs in the Gulf market.
By Rajive Singh