Nissan Qashqai e-Power review: the EV you never need to plug in
It took less than five minutes to be involved in a collision and for the first time ever I thought it would be more fun to walk than drive.
Cairo is undoubtedly the worst place I’ve never driven. Sitting in the back of a surprisingly affordable Egyptologist/tour guide’s battered van was scary enough as we were assailed on all sides by lunatics, beasts, bikes and bubbling fury. It took less than five minutes for us to be involved in a collision and for the first time ever I thought it would be more fun to walk than drive.
India is the scariest place I’ve been forced to take the wheel, and I will never forget one particular intersection where it seemed the only way to ever cross the milling maelstrom of madness was to close my eyes and accelerate in a general direction. But when it comes to a country that fills me with white-hot road rage, as well as a sense of impending doom for the future of Australia, it’s hard to go past Sweden, although I wish I had.
Look, Sweden is a beautiful place, most of it seems to be a lake, and the people seem nice, while also clearly cowed by the ridiculous road-safety regime they live under (they also look very fit and outdoorsy, although their habit of flailing a big hiking pole in each hand every time they go for a walk is odd). But I hated it.
Or at least I hated driving there, which is what I’d been called to do for the international launch of an entirely radical new Nissan, the Qashqai e-Power – basically an EV that you never need to plug in, and which you fill up with petrol. Yes, it does sound like it was designed specifically with Australians in mind, and I’m dubbing it an NPHEV (No Plug-in Hybrid Electric Vehicle).
The e-Power was very interesting, smooth and enjoyable to drive, or it would have been if we weren’t in Sweden, where the speed limit on a nice, winding country road is often 40km/h and rarely higher than 60, and where there are speed cameras, without exaggeration, every 500m.
We eventually found a three-lane-wide freeway, where the limit was 70km/h. Over a whole day of driving, in which we managed to cover barely 100km, an 80 sign was the biggest number I saw. Honestly, it would drive you to drink, but the Swedish limit for alcohol at the wheel is, of course, 0.0.
I did have a lot of time to appreciate the quietness of the Qashqai e-Power’s cabin, however, and the cleverness of the way you can barely hear its three-cylinder, turbocharged 1.5-litre engine kicking in, unless you’re driving quickly, so almost never.
In the e-Power, that petrol engine is never actually turning the wheels; that job is done by a 140kW electric motor that’s similar to what you’d find in a Nissan Leaf EV. This Qashqai also has a battery, a generator and an inverter, but no gearbox, again, just like an EV.
Unlike an EV, or a PHEV, it has no plugs or sockets; you just fill it up with petrol, like an olde-world car, and the engine then operates as a power plant for the e-Power system, making electricity via the generator, which is then sent to the battery to keep it charged, or to the motor if required, or to both at once.
There’s a helpful display on the dash that shows you how all this is happening, but the good news is that you really don’t notice all this load-sharing as a driver. It feels like an EV – with no gear changes to interrupt your acceleration – and it’s quiet and thrusty to drive like one, too (although it doesn’t quite have the initial, off-the-line zap of a traditional electric car).
You may well ask: “What’s the point of buying an EV if it runs on petrol? Am I making a motoring choice to save the planet – like all the cool Tesla kids – or just saving myself the hassle of finding charging points?” Well, that all comes down to the numbers, and we did manage to match Nissan’s claimed fuel-consumption for the Qashqai e-Power, 5.3 litres per 100km, which is pretty good for a spacious, crossover SUV but still 5.3 litres higher than a full EV (the CO2 number is 119 g/km).
Nissan describes it as a “stepping stone” and “the last car you’ll need to buy before choosing a full EV”, and suggests that it’s a good way for people to be won over by how good an electric vehicle can be to drive, without the hassles (particularly in our infrastructure-inadequate country) of actually owning one. The key point will be the price, but Nissan won’t tell us that yet, as Australia will have to wait a little longer before e-Power technology makes it Down Under, probably early next year.
Speaking of the future and our country, a few years ago I spoke to the safety zealots at the TAC in Victoria for a story about speed limits, and “safety” cameras, and they told me that there’s one country they look to as an exemplar of strategy. The country that gave us Volvo, and the evil that is Ikea. My vote for the worst place on Earth to drive. Sweden.
NISSAN QASHQAI E-POWER
ENGINE: 1.5-litre three-cylinder plus 140kW electric motor (140kW/330Nm). Average fuel 5.3 litres per 100km
TRANSMISSION: one-speed, front-wheel drive
PRICE: $50,000 (est)
RATING: ★★★★
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