While Toyota and Honda’s showrooms are littered with electrified offerings, Nissan hasn’t had much to counter. Globally, Nissan offers a series hybrid system called E-Power, but the company has been reluctant to offer it Stateside. If you ask anyone at the company about it, they’ll tell you that while it makes sense in Europe, Japan, and other parts of Asia, it is not optimized for the type of driving we do this side of the pond.
Nissan’s hybrid offerings in North America have been lackluster at best. There was the Altima that borrowed Toyota’s hybrid system from the Camry, and there was the Rogue hybrid that failed to deliver noticeably better fuel economy. And that’s really it.
That, however, is about to change with the company’s third-generation system.
To demonstrate it, Nissan loaded a couple of brand-new European-spec Qashqais onto a boat bound for North America so we could get a taste of the powertrain that will debut later this year in the Nissan Rogue. The Qashqai is a bit smaller than the new Rogue—a previous generation was sold here as the Rogue Sport—but the powertrain will be the same.
That powertrain is a new, unique-to-E-Power 1.5 L turbocharged 3-cylinder engine. Being a series hybrid, power from that engine goes through the inverter to either the front electric motor or to the onboard 2.1 kWh battery pack for use later; it’s never used to directly power the front wheels.
Credit: Nissan An illustration of Nissan’s 5-in-1 modular hybrid system. An illustration of Nissan’s 5-in-1 modular hybrid system. Credit: Nissan
The front electric motor is lifted straight from the all-new Nissan Leaf and has a maximum output of 202 hp (151 kW) in this application. Qashqai is a front-wheel-drive vehicle, but the Rogue E-Power will feature all-wheel drive powered by an electric motor on the rear axle. Output will be higher, but Nissan isn’t saying what that will be at this point.