New Juke provides fuel for thought

NISSAN HYBRID OFFERS STYLE, BUT NOT BEST ECONOMY

My good mate Paul, who’s been a motoring journalist as long as I have, is the Samuel Pepys of our business.

He’s been writing down details in a diary of the cars he’s driven over the last 35 years including their fuel consumption. This has allowed him to establish Paul’s Law which says that all cars do 35 miles to the gallon.

Now, obviously Ferraris and Range Rovers don’t, but Paul has deduced that most family cars do. And I agree with him, especially today when diesels are going out of fashion.

The car that we’re testing this week, as we shall read later, follows Paul’s Law in spirit. It’s the new Nissan Juke hybrid, for which its maker claims impressive fuel economy numbers.

It’s not a plug-in hybrid but instead uses the same system that Renault uses in its Arkana E-tech and other hybrid models.

That means a 1.6-litre petrol engine combined with a 48bhp electric motor and an integrated starter generator unit. Total system horsepower is 141bhp.

It’s a clever powertrain which has its roots in Formula One. Unlike the CVT transmissions used by Toyota and Honda in their hybrids, the Renault/nissan

transmission doesn’t send the engine’s revs soaring up and down as you overtake or accelerate up a hill. In fact, the car isn’t even fitted with a rev

counter and neither are there paddles with which you can manually select ratios. You just press the pedal and go.

Talking of pedals, the Juke

hybrid has an E-pedal button which can be pressed to increase regenerative braking to help charge the system’s lithium ion battery. The battery robs the luggage space of 68 litres of storage which brings the total available down to 356 litres, thus giving the Juke one of the smallest boots of the compact crossover class.

It is, though, pleasant to drive with a comfortable ride. It doesn’t feel like it’s got as much as 141bhp under its bonnet but it does feel more sprightly than the normal 1.0-litre petrol Juke, and you can feel how the electric motor is filling in the gaps and helping with acceleration. As for the petrol consumption, on our test we managed 44mpg driving conservatively with little heavy acceleration. Nissan claims an official figure of 56.5mpg. That’s around the figure we got from the Toyota Yaris Cross that we recently tested.

From experience of Renault’s Arkana E-tech, I suspect that the Juke will give much more impressive economy figures around town where it will spend significant amounts of time running on electric power.

Nissan has given the Juke hybrid slightly different styling to its conventional cousins with a partially blanked front grille, but has also taken the opportunity to give all Juke models a light makeover with new front and rear bumpers, alloy wheels and a rear spoiler. Also added are improved audio systems and keyless entry.

Inside, the Juke gets new dials and a digital display of what’s happening energy-wise with the petrol engine and electric motors. It retains the previous infotainment system with its 8in screen and interface which is a long way from being the best system in class.

Our Tekna-spec Juke hybrid costs £28,750 which is £1,730 more than a 1.0-litre automatic Juke in the same spec. However, Nissan says that it’s barely more expensive if you take out a PCP deal on the car.

If you’re really interested in fuel economy – and with petrol around £1.90 a litre who isn’t? – then there are better alternatives. The Toyota Yaris Cross, for example, which breaks Paul’s

Law by achieving almost 60mpg.

You get a new front grille, alloy wheels, fresh bumpers and a rear spoiler