A must-have feature on any electric vehicle this day is a charging port, but this problem is challenged by infrastructural development more than anything else. In Malaysia, you have to be at selected places to be able to charge your car, and sometimes this can be troublesome. Nissan meanwhile, has a solution that could eliminate this problem, and they’re calling it the e-POWER system.
The system is displayed for the first time through this JDM Nissan Note e-POWER, and this range extender concept is rather simple. Conventional electric cars solely rely on their batteries, whereas hybrids weigh more because they have an engine, electric motor, a power generator and a battery pack to operate. These batteries also usually take up boot space, reducing practicality.
Nissan’s innovative solution to this is by employing a 1.2-litre three-cylinder gasoline engine to deliver electrical juice to the battery. It uses a smaller battery size (1/20 the size of that in the Nissan Leaf) which doesn’t eat into cabin space. This concept works brilliantly for compact cars as demonstrated in this Note. The benefits are substantial as not only it matches the drivability of an EV, it also claims to consume fuel as efficiently as a conventional hybrid.
Nissan has hinted that this concept could be applied beyond compact cars, but with a slightly bigger battery. We can safely say that the Note e-POWER won’t be coming to Malaysia anytime soon (if ever). However the question becomes, with Nissan venturing into the electrification space, what will Edaran Tan Chong Motor do? Can the company offer locally assembled hybrids in the near future?
IMAGE GALLERY
