NOTE E-POWER HYBRIDS TAKING JAPAN BY STORM
TOKYO It may seem odd that Nissan — one of the largest purveyors of battery-powered electric vehicles, having moved almost half a million Leaf hatchbacks over the past 10 years — doesn’t offer even a single hybrid model. In Canada, that is.
In Japan, on the other hand, the company’s e-Power models are very popular, the unique electrified powertrain responsible, says the company, for taking the company’s Note hatchback from a lowly 14th spot on the compact segment’s sales chart all the way to No. 1.
More importantly, of the 140,000 or so Notes that Nissan sells annually in Japan, fully twothirds of them are hybrids.
So, why can’t we buy the e-Power powertrain in Canada? We drove an electrified 2019
Note around a post-typhoon Tokyo. Here’s what we learned.
1.
Nissan marches to a different e-drummer
Nissan’s e-Power system is what’s referred to as a series hybrid powertrain. That’s as compared to the more common — as in, the Toyota Prius — parallel hybrid. So, while in a Prius, both gasoline engine and electric motor can both drive the wheels — hence working in parallel — the little 1.2-litre three-cylinder in the Note only generates electricity, either charging the on-board 1.5-kWh lithium-ion battery or sending electrons directly to the electric motor. Essentially, it’s an electric car with a gasoline-powered generator on board to keep the smallish battery topped up. Or, another way to look at it might be as a Chevy Volt — which also used its gas engine as a generator — without the larger battery.
2.
The Note e-Power never needs to be plugged in
The Note gets most of its electricity from its gasoline engine. It can go a couple of kilometres on its smallish battery alone, and like all hybrids, can recharge the battery via regenerative braking. But for all intents and purposes, the primary energy source for its electric power is that little 1.2-L engine. In other words, the gas engine, as in a Toyota Prius, is always on.
Where the two differ — and why Nissan says e-Power is more efficient than Toyota’s Hybrid Synergy Drive — is that the gas engine is a generator (and not connected to the wheels), and it operates at a fairly constant speed (usually between 2,000 and 3,500 rpm). Gas engines, as engineers and gearheads know, are always most efficient when operating at a steady speed.
Notes are rated by Japan’s JC08 test cycle to be able to travel 34 kilometres on a single litre of fuel. That’s about 3.0 L/100 km — more frugal than the Prius.
3.
It drives like an electric car There should be no surprise that Note e-Power drives like an electric car. After all, it’s an electric car — the only thing driving its front wheels is the little 80-kW electric motor. So, unlike a parallel hybrid, the on-board gas engine doesn’t really change engine speed when you push the throttle. Oh, mash it hard and the revs will climb, but that’s just the little engine trying to generate more electricity, not power the wheels.
Throttle response, meanwhile, is typical EV. Though the Note only boasts 80 kW — 107 horsepower — it feels pretty peppy off the line, with all the electric motor torque at zero rpm generating instant git-up-and-go. But while the little runabout reacts quickly, it’s not a sports car. Pushed much beyond 100 km/h, the Note starts to lose its verve. That, of course should be expected. After all, it does boast about the same power as Nissan’s own Micra.
4.
The pricing isn’t stupid
The cheapest you can buy an e-Powered Note in Japan is 1,937,100 Yen, or just a tad under $24,000 in Canadian loonies. That compares to 1,447,600 Yen for the base gas-powered version, an increase of roughly $5,874 or 34 per cent. For that jump, one gets brisker initial acceleration (but less passing ability above 100 km/h) and a roughly 50 per cent reduction in fuel consumption. Whatever the exact longterm overall cost equation, the electrified Note doesn’t seem outrageously priced.
5.
So why isn’t it here already? That’s a good question. Nissan’s response that the current powertrains aren’t quite powerful enough for North American consumption yet, but I think there’s more to it than mere technical specifications.
When deposed Nissan chief executive Carlo Ghosn introduced the fully-electric Leaf some 10 years ago, he was adamant that the future was one without internal combustion engines, and that Nissan wouldn’t bother developing hybrids because EVs were sure to leapfrog them in short order.
Well, that hasn’t happened, and Ghosn’s refusal to compromise no doubt left Nissan behind competitors who did design combined gas/electric powertrains.
Nonetheless, I do expect that Nissan will design more North American-friendly hybrids in the next few years.
If my short ride in the Note e-Power is any indication, we should hope that’s sooner rather than later.