Nissan IMx Kuro: beware of seditious thoughts

In what form the concept would have reached the series is unknown. Maybe it will come, but the waiting time limit is running out. Fortunately. Although, it is not a fact that in Japan, like ours, they are waiting for the promised 7 years.


It turns out that there is a chance that this coolly tricked-out crossover will fall on poor motorists. Then the owner will have to install a thought reader on the top of his head. You can’t live without it—it’s for this technology that the car was conceived.

Nissan IMx Kuro Concept

The manufacturer did not specify whether the driver will have a hoop, a helmet or a crown on his head. But the device will read your thoughts as if in an ABC book. So, be careful with your thoughts...


With the IMx Kuro concept, Nissan first fooled its compatriots at the Tokyo Auto Show. There was delight, surprise, bewilderment. Then the prototype went to Europe, to Frankfurt, on an important mission.

The company's chief designer Alfonso Albaisa says:



The European debut was also accompanied by a stunning effect. It seemed that the Japanese strained all their brains to blow up the skulls of the rest of the earthlings. We can say we succeeded.

"From brain to car"

Take, for example, Nissan's own factory-built Brain-to-Vehicle technology - B2V. First, as is customary in Japan, they came up with philosophy. Or it was in the air, they just had to catch it, we can’t pretend to say.

But the point is this: man and machine are comrades. They must understand each other, help, and be in constant communication.


The car obeys the will of a person when he presses the pedals, operates the gear lever, and turns the steering wheel. But how tiring it is! We created assistants to make parking, braking, climbing hills easier, etc. Then they taught the assistants to act according to the owner’s voice, gaze, and hand manipulations.

And this is not enough. Let the machine follow the commands of the brain! Directly. That is, the owner thought, the vehicle did. It turns out that thinking out loud (voice command) is also backbreaking work?

So, the power of thought, Nissan decided and came up with the B2V system. Shown in Las Vegas. They completely charmed the Americans, who at that time were apparently exhausted by the need to pronounce commands to the car.

B2V in practice

However, for your iron “friend” to understand you, put a thought reader on your head. Maybe scanner is a better name for the device. Or a device for measuring brain wave activity. In a word, you put it on, now, let’s say, you turn around. The structure on your head will instantly understand your initiative and send a signal to your assistants 0,2-0,5 seconds faster.


They will connect more quickly and reduce the car’s reaction time to control actions by a fraction of a second. Will the driver notice this? No, the Nissan people answer. But the fact itself is pleasant - you control the car with the power of thought. Meanwhile, the car adapts to the owner’s driving style. Friends and associates!

You can be ironic about this as much as you like. But actually, the technology is cool. It is at the “break-in” stage and will certainly be useful in the future. Just in case, be careful with your thoughts...

ProPILOT (autopilot) and Intelligent Integration (intelligent integration)

Let's continue to study Japanese technologies. Autopilot is not new. The only thing is that in the Nissan IMx Kuro concept car it is designed in a unique way. When a tired owner puts the car into autonomous driving mode, the steering wheel is retracted under the dashboard and the seat backs recline.


Quiet hour. All sleep. So you will go, “sleeping”, like on an airplane... I inadvertently remembered one passenger who flew in a similar way from Moscow to Leningrad. What happened then, ironically, is well known.

But let's return to Intelligent Integration. The idea is this: the hero of our review is part of the overall urban ecological system. When the owner does not need the car, it can connect to the electrical network of a private or apartment building and release the energy remaining in the battery.

Let’s imagine, Nissan engineers give an example, the owner flew by plane on business. The car itself will find a place in a special parking lot, connect (how?) to the power grid and give up part of the battery charge to the city. Upon return, the driver will take this amount of electricity and go home.

What century is this, you say?.. And the Japanese developers are in their twenty-fifth.

Exterior and interior

When developing the exterior and interior, the stylists again searched and found a suitable philosophy. This is a concept that unites, at first glance, opposite things - movement and rest. And simply – harmony. You begin to understand and feel it when looking at the crossover.


Journalists quip: Nissan IMx Kuro would not take a prize at a concours d'elegance. Maybe. Not glamorous, we agree. Rather, strength, power, a challenge to the world. The wide front fenders are made in an original way, as if several panels were layered. In the design of the front part, the designers retained Nissan’s signature style: a “horseshoe” with a nameplate inside.

The salon is designed for four passengers. Here they created a kind of traditional Japanese house: space, abundance of light, laconicism. I want to leave my shoes at the door.

Where you look for the instrument panel, there is a bizarrely shaped canvas. It combines a wooden laminate with translucent plastic, illuminated from the inside. The beautiful design extends to the door cards. And all the parprise data is reflected on the windshield.

The physical controls are somehow cleverly hidden: no levers, no keys. Why switches if the machine obeys the movements of the eyes, hands and brain signals.

The seat upholstery features a diagonal pattern – engraved with a laser cutter. And the backlit headrests refer to a Japanese toy - a wooden puzzle. Incredible beauty. And, yes, there is movement outside, peace inside. Something didn’t work out with the body color: Kuro – black, in Japanese. But let's not quibble.

"Driving force"

The car has two electric motors located at the front and rear. In total, the engines generate 435 hp. With. Torque - 700 N*m - is distributed to all 4 wheels.


There is no information about the battery capacity. But the developers promise a range of 600 km without recharging. Adaptive electronically controlled suspension. The crossover is built on a new platform developed by Nissan specifically for electric trains.

We summarize

In 2017, the Japanese company's product made a strong impression. It still worries us today, although motorists have seen quite a lot of new and innovative things.

Nissan has created an interesting, high-tech, functional machine. Spectacular in appearance, it is packed to the brim with innovations. The manufacturer placed the main emphasis on ease of operation, user comfort and safety of the vehicle. Whether the Nissan IMx Kuro will hit the production line is a question. Even if this does not happen, the engineering ideas will not be in vain.

Imperceptibly, with difficulty, rejection or even outright sabotage, electronic technologies are entering the engineering industry. Everything is changing and improving thanks to the highbrow employees of the automotive industry. We are waiting for the concept to be translated into a production model. In the meantime, we are learning to keep our thoughts somewhere deep in the recesses of our consciousness...