Nissan ePower - Good or Evil?

Sad times.

@donald will rightly point out that a well driven ICE will have similar overall emissions to a BEV over a long journey with the current electricity mix, but that is NOT how the majority of these will be used. And unlike PHEVs these are not a "gateway" to the full BEV experience. Instead they represent a technological blind alley that will slow the required move away from fossil fuels.

And to think that Nissan were one of the companies that lead the move to make mainstream EVs available 10 years ago.

Hitstirrer said:

the solution for your desire is to lobby strongly for more, and more reliable chargers out there.

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You are assuming that people act logically. Few of the people buying one of these will have tried a pure BEV and found it unsuitable. Most will just be remaining with ICE based on cost and ignorance.

Spiny said:

In theory as the ICE engine can be run at its most efficient and using something like the Atkinson cycle this should be more efficient than a pure ICE of the same size.

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Toyota's advertising is clearly working - changing the cycle type is only a small part of gaining efficiency, and arguably a small highly boosted engine (Ford Ecoboost for example) is better. But this is confusing the steady state efficiency of steady cruising with the reality of short distance stop-start motoring which is most people's reality most of the time. Then you need to look at the efficiency of warming up the ICE and cat along with the energy recovery of a small battery hybrid.

Hitstirrer said:

such a car as this Qashquai can be tempting as it offers the same drive experience but without all of the other negatives.

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It may tempt some people, but it will not offer an identical drive experience to an EV, more so to an ICE. Noise, smell, vibrations, higher CofG, need to refuel expensively and out of the way every 500 miles with smelly and dirty pumps etc. isn't the EV drive experience, particularly for those with home charging.

If an owner is someone that mainly does long journeys or doesn't have home or workplace charging then a serial hybrid such as this has some attractions.

Anyway, it'll be off of UK sales by 2030.

Don't forget to drive into rural Wales with an empty fuel tank on a Sunday night. You'd be wishing you had an EV. 😉

Likewise there are no routes using Rapids that BEVs can ever make, even Tesla. 😉

Hitstirrer said:

the i3 had a substantial battery that could run the car for 80 miles and had a small scooter engine under the boot as a Rex ( range extender ) but could not drive the wheels itself, because it wasn't connected to the drive train.

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The i3 is very similar to the Nissan e-Power apart from the battery size (22-44kWh Vs 2kWh), the fact that the battery could be externally charged, and that the ICE power was much lower meaning that performance was limited when the battery was depleted.

Hitstirrer said:

(The Nissan e-Power) cannot move more than a few yards using its battery.

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According to @Miles Roberts it can manage up to 4 miles in urban traffic which fits with the heavily buffered 2kWh battery.

I look forward to @Hitstirrer 's review but still question how many buyers of large crossovers really need more daily range than the Ariya offers, a point that we disagree on.

Mr_G said:

In e-power the ICE does not mechanically drive the road wheels. It is a series hybrid.

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The point being that in later Outlanders most of the time the drive was electric, but above 40mph the engine directly drove the wheels and the electric motor via a clutch. In theory this is more efficient than driving via the generator and electric motor at higher speeds and power outputs where the round trip from mechanical to electricity and back to mechanical are unnecessary and inefficient.
There might of course be royalties to pay to GKN....

I'd much prefer to get a British built EV, but the LEAF is (in my opinion) dated and expensive compared to the MG4. The other two don't interest me as they aren't BEV and I don't want a crossover. Nissan have lost their way in Europe, partly thanks to the EU punishing the UK by removing tariffs on Japanese built cars.

GOSPORT DAVE said:

The elephant in the room is:

What is it like to drive? does it have enough power? 140W output doesn't seem a lot.

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To me it's not the 140kW that the ICE produces, but the 178kW that the electrical motor can put out from the battery. Admittedly after a few minutes at maximum power the battery will deplete despite the efforts of the ICE to top it up, but the chances are that the car will have hit its limited maximum speed even up a very steep hill.
So with the same power as an Ariya and less weight it should be fast enough.
Worth noting that the Ariya can also tow twice the amount, and that if you include "fuel" in the monthly costs the Ariya may well cost less.

Mr_G said:

It might even have quite a long run if future versions have bigger batteries and smaller engines along with a charging port.

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Sadly this "new" version of the Qashqui doesn't appear to have been built with a significant battery in mind - a major oversight in my mind - so bigger batteries are unlikely for this product cycle.

Hitstirrer said:

my takeaway impression was - It's just a modern bog standard car.

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That's enough for most people. ☹