Nissan’s new groundbreaking Qashqai will be a gateway to an electrified future

Nissan’s Qashqai e-Power has a 140kW/330Nm electric motor that never needs to be charged – the three-cylinder, turbocharged 1.5-litre engine does it all for you, generating its own electricity

You won’t ever have to plug in the Nissan Qashqai e-Power 2022

Nissan has unveiled a radical new technology aimed at making the transition to electric vehicles easier – an EV that runs on petrol and never needs plugging in.

The system is called e-Power and it will be on sale locally under the bonnet of the familiar looking crossover SUV, Nissan’s Qashqai, at the start of next year, and The Australian has just driven it at its world premiere in Sweden.

Essentially an entirely new form of hybrid, the Qashqai e-Power has a 140kW/330Nm electric motor that drives the wheels and a battery, just like an EV, but it also has a three-cylinder, turbocharged 1.5-litre engine, which it uses as a power plant to create electricity.

The Qashqai e-Power is a stepping stone to EVs

The power from the petrol engine is sent, via a generator and an inverter, either to the Qashqai’s battery, or direct to the electric motor, or both at once, depending on the driving situation.

What the petrol engine never does is drive the wheels, it’s just there to make electricity. Nor it is it connected to a gearbox in the Qashqai e-Power, because the car doesn’t have one. Like a typical EV, it just uses one gear, which means it has seamless, uninterrupted acceleration.

The Qashqai starts up silently, just like an electric car, and is pleasantly quiet, like an EV, unless you really need to put your foot down, at which point you can hear the engine kicking in to help. At low, city speeds, it’s possible to choose the EV mode and enjoy silent running.

When you do call on the engine for help, it’s never noisy, nor disconcerting, and much of the time you need to look at the power readout displays on the dash to work out which kind of power you’re actually using. It just feels … like a normal car, albeit one with an unusual amount of acceleration.

That’s because electric cars, or even e-Power cars, offer all of their 330Nm of torque, all the time, and effectively from zero rpm.

But if you’re still burning petrol, what is the point, you might well ask? Well, for one thing, Nissan sees its e-Power technology as a stepping stone, or a gateway, for people who are keen to try an EV, yet worried about range anxiety.

The Qashqai e-Power features stunning leather seats

Nissan also claims that its e-Power technology is far more efficient, and less polluting, than a comparable internal-combustion car, with claimed fuel economy of 5.3 litres per 100km and CO2 outputs of 119g/km. That’s not as low as some plug-in hybrids claim, of course.

Nissan says e-Power, which will be rolled out across much of its range, will become its “leading powertrain in Western Europe, and in markets like Australia.”

Nissan Europe spokesman Frederic Delmotte says the company realised that “not everybody is ready to go 100 per cent electric yet” and that e-Power technology would thus help the company reach its goal of having its entire range “electrified” by 2030.

“For those people who are not ready, e-Power is the transition to the electric experience, it will give them the flavour, the enjoyment of driving a car that is quiet, that has no vibration, no noise and a cosy ambience, and one that uses less fuel,” Delmotte explained.

“And once they get used to that, they will try to drive it in EV mode, in silence, as much as possible.

It’s the perfect car for customers who want to embrace the electric driving experience, but aren’t ready to go all the way yet.

The Qashquai e-Power is packed with intuitive technology

“Effectively, e-Power is the last car you will buy before you buy a full EV.”

Nissan Australia is yet to confirm the pricing for the Qashqai e-Power when it arrives in Australia around the start of 2023, but we would speculate it will sit somewhere between $40,000 and $50,000.