Technology

Each Altima has a little bit GT-R magic.

Regular people like us, the kind of people who don’t have slots on waiting lists or color names after them, find the most exciting part about any new supercar the cutting-edge technology that will be integrated into regular sedans in the next few years.

The 2.5-liter four-cylinder engine in the Nissan Altima is a good example. The Altima uses technology that was originally developed for the Nissan GT-R. Instead of traditional cylinder bore lines, it uses what Nissan refers to as a mirror bore process.

More Nissan News:

This involves spraying a thin coating of molten steel onto the bores of the cylinders. Gas is used to inject atomized, charged metal wires into the cylinders. A diamond carbide tool then is used to polish and hone each coated bore of a cylinder. This reduces friction.

This reduces friction means less wear, greater efficiency and hopefully longer life expectancy. The new 2.5-liter four-cylinder engine in the Altima produces 182 horsepower and is rated at 37 MPG on the highway.

The Altima comes with a 5-year, 60,000-mile powertrain warranty. We will need to wait a while before we can find out how the coating performs in this application.

These numbers may not be as impressive as Altima’s GT-R stablemate but they are more than enough for the average Altima customer. Many of these customers will own and drive their cars for many years, without ever realizing the technological marvels that lie beneath the hood.

The most impressive thing about this engine is the fact that the Nissan powertrain plant in Decherd (Tennessee) produces more than 1.4 million engines annually at a rate up to one per 19 seconds. Even with the additional complexity of mirror bore, the plant is expected keep its current pace. What does that mean for technological advancement?