Nissan E-Power. The ultimate green washing?

[Someone]

Remember, the automotive industry is all smoke and mirrors, with marketing terms like "mild hybrid"

From a bit of googling on Nissan E-power, the battery capacity is 2.1kWhr, fuel tank capacity is 41L (equivalent energy storage of 400kWhr). So yeah, the battery is just there for load levelling, like "classic" hybrids. But it's a series hybrid design instead of parallel hybrid. If it has any real merit (from an engineering perspective) I'd guess it's from a simpler/cheaper transmission system.

Because the battery is so tiny, it doesn't really make sense to put in a charger. Even if you charged the battery every day from a wall charger, the overall difference in fuel consumption would be negligible (assuming average driving habits).

Agree such a small battery barely makes sense to charge from mains. Following the general calculations Siwastaja suggest for instantaneous power, the ICE would be running an awful lot of the time across a wider range of loads (worse emissions/consumption) compared to "fuller" hybrid power systems.

Sounds stupid to me. With mere 2.1kWh battery capacity, I would rather do a parallel hybrid, or even a simplified version thereof, something often called "light hybrid". Basically just replace the gear driven starter motor + solenoid plus belt driven alternator bullshit with a tad more powerful electric motor-generator which costs maybe $100 more than the starter + alternator and their required gears etc. That motor can be used as generator, starter, and to assist the ICE generate a bit more torque, allowing them to use smaller engine without having to shift to low gears for accelerations. The benefit of this is very low cost so good bang for buck.

Economically that mixture of parts probably makes more sense as a through the road or mild parallel hybrid, so there must be some other reasoning behind it....

a platform for both pure electric and hybrid, as the leaf shares the underlying platform and may have some extensive commonality (haven't looked through service documents or teardown to check)

there is a significant market for AWD vehicles, and this is a cheap way to get there

[coppice]

2. There's no reason to believe used ICE or Hybrid vehicles are going to drop significantly in price in the near future, unless you believe that driving them or selling gasoline is going to become illegal or something (lol).

There are recent reports in the UK of the opposite happening. Second hand hand car prices have been elevated for the past couple of years, due to the constrained supply of new cars. Now that is ending, prices are falling but second hand EVs are falling much faster than ICE cars. That might be temporary. Current high electricity prices, and poor public charging infrastructure, are definitely working against EV uptake at this moment, but I assume that will change.

[Black Phoenix]

2. There's no reason to believe used ICE or Hybrid vehicles are going to drop significantly in price in the near future, unless you believe that driving them or selling gasoline is going to become illegal or something (lol).

There are recent reports in the UK of the opposite happening. Second hand hand car prices have been elevated for the past couple of years, due to the constrained supply of new cars. Now that is ending, prices are falling but second hand EVs are falling much faster than ICE cars. That might be temporary. Current high electricity prices, and poor public charging infrastructure, are definitely working against EV uptake at this moment, but I assume that will change.

I never compare to the UK used market. As a country who drives on the left, their cars are basically useful in the UK and Ireland who makes their used price to he a lot lower than cars in countries like Germany or France.

Most of the second hand Mercedes, BMW and Audi in circulation in Portugal were used 4 years, diesel with close to 200K on the odometer, although some sport petrol ones as Audi S4/S6, Mercedes SLS and BMW M3/M5 are also originally German imported.

A ton of classic cars and exotic/sports cars (as Aston Martin, Renault Clio V6, Nissan Skyline R34, Honda Integra, Mazda RX7) are UK imported and legalize in Portugal because of their price being in some cases close to 40% less (even after taxes and registration fees, if their original registration is before June 2007) than the equivalent left hand drive already in the country.

That's why in Portugal it is common for people who want specific models or classics, who mostly will be on a garage 95% of the year go to the UK and then import and register them in Portugal.

Or if they want a German car to go to Germany and Import them.

All of this to tell you that in terms of prices in Portugal EVs used and Hybrids didn't had a significant drop in value compared with pure ICE models.

[mtwieg]

In the USA at least, vehicle prices and preferences are incredibly dependent on politics. Easy example is that vehicles classified as "light trucks" have far more lenient emission and safety regulations than standard cars, and can also qualify for massive tax deductions if they're used mostly for "business". Meanwhile actual light-duty trucks like the Kei are illegal to import and drive on public roads (unless they're 25 years or older) due industry lobbies. Hence why average vehicle weight has shot up recently in the US. Nothing to do with free markets, engineering, or energy costs.

[Black Phoenix]

Hence why average vehicle weight has shot up recently in the US. Nothing to do with free markets, engineering, or energy costs.

Weight and overall size of it. A now Ford F150 can't be as far away of what a F150 was 25/30 years ago. That was a "work horse" for farm use.

Nowadays a Light Truck is used as a glorified SUV/Sports Truck to pick the kids at the Football training or go to buy groceries. I tend to say that probably 80% (if not more) didn't saw a shovel of gravel in their back or even some moving boxes.

[elecdonia]

I'm still driving my 2005 Prius. It continues to be the perfect car for me.

I've had only a few issues with it:
1) One of its NiMH modules failed 5 years ago, lighting up all the warning indicators on the dash like a Christmas tree and putting the car into the "it can barely move with a maximum speed of 25mph" emergency state. I obtained a supply of used NiMH modules and wound up replacing 2 modules in my battery pack. No issues since then. I'm impressed that Toyota's charge/discharge algorithm permits the NiMH cells to have a >10 year life.
2) My catalytic converter was stolen 2 years ago while the car was sitting in my driveway. Because I live in Illinois (not California) I was able to legally install an aftermarket catalytic converter. It works fine. No complaints from the car's engine management system. I also installed a "Cat Shield." This is a large thick aluminum plate attached under the car which makes it very difficult to steal the catalytic converter.

Living in central Illinois (very flat, no hills) and doing most of my driving "in town," I'm still getting an avg. of ~37 miles per US gallon. This is about 2 mpg below what I got with the original factory catalytic converter. I suspect the aftermarket cat contains less catalyst and therefore takes longer to warm up in cold weather (The ICE engine burns a considerable amount of extra fuel to heat up the cat after a cold start).  My car is still fully capable of operating at highway speeds, and at  around 55-60 mph, the fuel consumption rate can still reach 45 miles per US gallon. This is nearly as good as it was when new.


I've considered a Nissan Leaf but I won't buy another car until the old Prius is on it last legs.
   

[coppice]

In the USA at least, vehicle prices and preferences are incredibly dependent on politics. Easy example is that vehicles classified as "light trucks" have far more lenient emission and safety regulations than standard cars, and can also qualify for massive tax deductions if they're used mostly for "business". Meanwhile actual light-duty trucks like the Kei are illegal to import and drive on public roads (unless they're 25 years or older) due industry lobbies. Hence why average vehicle weight has shot up recently in the US. Nothing to do with free markets, engineering, or energy costs.

The entire vehicle industry is driven by legislation. Why are there so many 2 litre vehicles, and why are they actually 1995cc or so? Because tax rules mean if they actually get to 2 litres there will be higher taxes. Almost everything in a car's design is a little about what customers like, and a lot about how to provide something workable within a web of legislation. In many countries much of that is about company cars, and the personal taxes they may or may not incur for the driver. Its decades of layer upon layer of messiness, with very little cleanup of what no longer makes any sense.