As bullish as Nissan has been on electric vehicles, like its battery-powered Leaf, the automaker has been surprisingly noncommittal with respect to hybrids. After the Nissan Altima hybrid—a unicorn, with its Toyota Hybrid Synergy Drive under license—there’s only been a cohort of crossover and utility models with entirely underwhelming single-motor CVT hybrid systems. That halfhearted approach to hybrids may be on the verge of changing—at least for the automaker’s small-car models—with the introduction of a new Nissan system called e-Power.
The new hybrid powertrain is installed in the latest Japan-spec Nissan Note, in a variant called the Note e-Power that, Nissan says, is the first mass-production compact car ever to be equipped with a series hybrid system.
With e-Power, the wheels are driven only by the electric motor, while a compact gasoline engine—in the Note’s case, a 1.2-liter three-cylinder—is coupled to a power generator and inverter (there’s no charge port). According to Nissan, the e-Power system uses a smaller battery than the Leaf—only about 1/20th the size—yet it delivers the same driving experience as a fully electric vehicle.
The benefits of such a simple layout are twofold: On one side, you get a city-speed driving experience that’s very much like that of a battery-electric vehicle, with “massive torque almost instantly,” as Nissan described it, without the need to charge the vehicle. Secondly, the system promises to be quieter than some other hybrid layouts—provided you’re not out to extract its full performance, we assume. Additionally, the technology complements the company’s fuel-cell-vehicle R&D.
The automaker said the powertrain is part of its Nissan Intelligent Mobility platform—the company’s core vision on how cars integrate into society and evolve toward zero emissions and autonomous driving.
Energy management is key to the EV-like driving experience, according to the company. If the battery pack’s capacity is in the vicinity of 1.5 kWh, that’s a respectable energy buffer for any hybrid small car and likely enough to give this model the capability to go a couple of light-load miles at a time, without the engine being started. “The e-Power system allows you to enjoy all the benefits of an EV without having to worry about charging the battery,” said a Nissan news release.
Although the approach could deliver some impressive fuel-economy ratings for city driving, it might not be an approach that pays off in U.S. EPA highway cycles—or in real-world highway driving. After exploring a similar series-hybrid system, Honda later opted for a more complex clutch-pack system in its Accord hybrid, allowing an Engine Drive mode to lock the engine to the wheels for steady-speed highway cruising.
Nissan hasn’t yet responded to our query about U.S. plans for such a system—which for now is only offered in the overseas-market Note subcompact (not to be confused with the Versa Note that’s sold here). In the meantime, Nissan hasn’t let its CVT hybrid system go; it’s been being relaunched, with a higher-power electric motor and wider all-electric operation, in the 2017 Rogue hybrid.
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