Nissan Qashqai e-Power

FIRST UK DRIVE Revised hybrid tech and minor fettling has turned this family car into the most complete Qashqai yet

- Alex Ingram

THIS is the new Nissan Qashqai – although it’s not so much a new version of one of Britain’s bestselling cars, but a new powertrain installed in the existing model. And as powertrains go, this one has seriously impressed us.

Nissan’s e-Power hybrid tech has proven to be very popular, with more than a quarter of a million units sold in Europe since the system was introduced in the Qashqai and larger X-Trail.

However, the e-Power models have never quite hit the mark from a driving point of view. Yes, they were fairly responsive, thanks to a setup where only the electric motor drives the front wheels (it’s easiest to think of e-Power as an EV that uses a petrol engine, instead of a big battery, to send energy to the electric motor). But they were always let down by average refinement and fuel efficiency.

Part of the reason for that was the fact that the petrol element of the hybrid setup, a 1.5-litre engine, was never designed to be run as a generator; it was lifted from the Nissan parts bin, having served in cars where it’s used as a conventional engine. Now that turbocharged three-cylinder unit has been extensively overhauled for its intended use in the new e-Power.