HOW NISSAN'S E-POWER PUSHES EFFICIENCY HIGHER

COMBUSTION ENGINE development is still important and the drive for efficiency will continue for as long as engines remain in use and the new Nissan e-Power system is a case in point.

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The first vehicle to use the latest, third-generation e-Power system, initially introduced in 2016, is the Qashqai, which began production in the UK in July.

Nissan's e-Power powertrain is a series hybrid system, so the 1.5-litre petrol engine works as a generator to charge the battery rather than driving the wheels. Because of that, the engine doesn't need to produce transient bursts of power and torque for acceleration. It drives an integral generator to charge the battery, but when driving at high speeds, it can also feed power via the inverter (power electronics) directly to the main drive motor while charging the battery at the same time.

An advantage of this approach is that it overcomes one of the combustion engine's main drawbacks: relatively poor thermal efficiency.