Nissan introduces Desert Camel Power to measure sand offroad abilities for 4x4s

This may sound a bit ridiculous initially, but Nissan Middle East has just announced a new concept to “revolutionise the way vehicles are evaluated for desert performance.” Developed by Nissan engineers over the past two years, 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.” It’s been a while since we graduated from engineering school, so we’ll just publish the specifics as told by Nissan.

The Japanese carmaker 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 making to easier for an at-a-glance assessment of a vehicle’s desert fitness.

Engineer Joseph Rachid El Hachem, Desert Camel Power Unit Engineer said, “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.”

Samir Cherfan, Managing Director Nissan Middle East says the company is confident that the concept will find widespread acceptance among the off-road community.

Nissan engineers got together scientists working in the field of metrology (the scientific study of measurement) to define Desert Camel Power as:

CP = velocity x weight x sin (trajectory)

A scientific paper has been presented to ESMA (Emirates Authority for Standardisation and Metrology), who are apparently “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 soon be used in all Nissan Middle East showrooms and marketing literature to define the desert capabilities of Nissan’s SUV line-up. It seems our Nissan Patrol LE has a Desert Camel Power rating of 213.