E-power ups Nissan Note’s appeal
Nissan has developed an electric vehicle that could have real applications in New Zealand – if we could get it. Rob Maetzig heads to Japan to drive the freshly minted Nissan Note e-power.
The biggest-selling vehicle in Japan last month wasn’t anything flashharry – but a small hatchback. While the car might be pint-sized, it represents a big pointer to the future for its manufacturer, Nissan.
The car is the Note e-power, and it is the first model to feature a new drive system that is also called e-power. It’s arrival marks a significant milestone in an electrification strategy under what the brand has dubbed Nissan Intelligent Mobility.
Nissan is well-known for its electric cars – in fact, its Leaf hatchback is the world’s bestselling pure electric car with more than 250,000 of them sold.
With the e-power strategy Nissan has borrowed from the EV technology perfected in the Leaf, but has added a small petrol engine to charge the electric motor’s battery when necessary.
Power from the battery is delivered to the Note e-power’s compact powertrain that consists of the 1.2-litre three cylinder petrol engine, a power generator, inverter, and the electric motor.
And all that represents one major difference – the owner of an Note e-power doesn’t have to charge the vehicle overnight or worry about so-called range anxiety, which has always been the biggest hassle with electric cars.
The only range worry with this car is the same as that for conventional cars – when to call into a service station and refuel.
The Note e-power is officially classified as a hybrid. But it’s what is known as a series hybrid, which means that unlike conventional parallel hybrids in which an electric motor and petrol engine combine forces to drive the wheels, in the Nissan the petrol engine isn’t connected to the wheels – it simply charges the battery.
This type of system structure generally requires a bigger electric motor and battery because the motor is the only direct source to the drive wheels, and this has made it difficult for car makers to mount the system in small cars.
However, Nissan has succeeded in reducing the size and weight of these components to the extent the Note uses a battery that is just 1/20th the size of the battery aboard the Leaf – small enough to fit under the car’s front seats – but still delivers the same driving experience as a full EV.
This means installation of the EV technology hasn’t impacted at all on the amount of room available in the Note e-power – in all respects it has exactly the same passenger and cargo space as a conventional Nissan Note, which is a hatch of about the same size as a Honda Jazz.
Of course, being smaller means the battery has much less storage capacity. Although details about the car are sparse, it’s understood the battery can store about 1.5kwh of energy, which would be enough to transport the Note e-power for about 2 kilometres purely on electricity.
But in this case size doesn’t matter, because the petrol motor is permanently on hand to act as a mini-power station on wheels and provide more charge.
Nissan says e-power delivers lots of torque almost instantly, much like a full EV. The company adds that because e-power relies on the engine much less frequently, fuel efficiency is comparable to or better than leading conventional hybrids, especially during around-town driving. Once again details are sparse, but it is understood the average fuel use can be as low as 2.3L/100km.
During a short and strictly controlled drive of this car inside a Nissan facility on the outskirts of Tokyo, the little Note e-power quickly displayed its instant acceleration, and at the higher speeds it was a quiet operator.
Most times the petrol engine ticked over at its most efficient speed, which is said to be around 2300rpm, only increasing its revolutions when it needed to pour more energy into the battery pack as we accelerated hard down the back straight of a test track.
We’re told that the hatchback’s total power output is around 80kw, which is about the same as the Leaf EV.
At this stage the Note e-power is being sold only on the Japanese domestic market, where it has proved so popular it was the country’s biggest-selling car in November with about 11,000 sales.
A major reason for this popularity is price, which isn’t much more than a standard Note thanks to the fact it carries a much smaller and less expensive battery pack than other EVS. Experts say savings in fuel costs over the life of the vehicle can potentially overcome this price premium.
All of this leads to some obvious questions, such as whether the Note e-power might be made available outside the Japanese domestic market, and whether the launch of this little vehicle is the precursor to more Nissans with the e-power technology.
We hope so. The Nissan Note is an excellent little hatchback anyway, well built and surprisingly spacious, and the e-power series hybrid version adds to its appeal.
Hopefully, if the car becomes available to markets outside of Japan, Nissan New Zealand will consider taking it. vehicles to learn about, as well as cups of possibly the most personal coffee you can drink.