The new Nissan Patrol is on its way to South Africa, and the excitement is well-founded. Its design now appeals to a broader audience and, more importantly, it has become a whole lot smarter. The headline act is a clever new feature that detects how warm or cool you are and gently adjusts the climate in your seating zone to suit your body temperature.
WELCOME TO BIOMETRIC COOLING
Sharp lines and sleek curves aside, the Patrol arrives with a long list of modern technologies. The 3D Around View Monitor, a full suite of driver-assistance systems, and a premium 12-speaker Klipsch audio system are all included. These are expected features at this level.
What is not so expected is the use of infrared sensors to measure each occupant’s body temperature, front and rear. The system then individually adjusts the heating, ventilation and cooling to match those readings. This is not your usual automatic air-conditioning setup.
It does make you wonder why no one has tried this sooner. The idea feels obvious, using familiar infrared technology found in night-vision goggles and trail cameras. Here, it reads your surface temperature and regulates seat ventilation, vent direction and blower speed to warm or cool you to the ideal point.
It is a clever idea, although a few potential complications come to mind. If you are wearing a leather jacket in bright sunlight, the system may register a higher temperature and start cooling you down, even though your jacket might be the actual culprit. Sun glare, reflections or even fidgety toddlers could all confuse the sensors in unusual ways.
This is likely why the technology has taken so long to reach the market. Creating a system that can recognise those tricky scenarios and work around them requires extensive research and proper real-world testing.
WHAT’S THE SOLUTION?
The word ‘biometric’ offers a clue. Nissan stresses that it is not identifying the user, but rather looking for a human face, where it can consistently capture a reliable temperature reading. If Nissan has perfected this, they may well be the first to offer a feature with far more complexity beneath the surface than it appears to have.
Its inclusion as a headline interior feature suggests they are confident.
Pair all of this with a 3.5-litre twin-turbo V6 that delivers 317 kW and 700 Nm – Nissan’s most powerful production engine yet – connected to a 9-speed automatic and a permanent four-wheel drive system, and the result is a package set to challenge the Land Cruiser. Choosing between the two may become even more difficult unless your brand loyalty was cast in stone at birth.
Innovative technology combined with a hearty ICE powerplant, one that carries DNA from the GT-R’s engine family, means the competition has just become significantly hotter.
Report by RUBEN VON STEEN
