Nissan E-Power. The ultimate green washing?

[ppTRN]

It is advertised as the "Electric car with no plug", essentially a thermal engine is providing the power to the inverter for motion and the power to reload the battery. It is NOT used to directly drive the car. So wait, i am using a relatively inefficient thermal engine to charge (with some losses) a car battery? Wouln't be better to just power the car via the thermal engine? I do not understend how this usage of a thermal motor to charge a battery is more efficient than just use it to run the car. Am I missing something ( i really think so, not that much of an expert in terms of cars) or is it just the ultimate green washing?

[sokoloff]

I haven’t studied that car’s engineering, but I think the reasonable measures are “how efficient is it measured in liters-per-100km or mpg?” and “is there any service benefit over the lifetime of the car?”

I think it will be easy to win on the second, but the first is what really matters.

[Siwastaja]

You are, what, 25 years late? What you describe is the ancient, classic hybrid vehicle, with no plug-in charging. It works and it has always worked due to the fact that internal combustion engine runs at colossally bad efficiency in city traffic conditions (accelerations, idling, etc.), so running the ICE smoothly in optimum conditions, charging batteries with it, and then use that charge to drive an electric motor has better efficiency - plus you can harvest braking energy, too.

These classic hybrids are only useful in city traffic (and occasional longer trips do not hurt too much). Although, I don't see a lot of point in such a 1990's retro thing in 2011+11+1, plug-in hybrids have been available for ages already and even pure EVs are really getting practical.

(I did not check what "Nissan E-Power" is, just replied based to your description.)

[langwadt]

at least two things,

a combustion engine is most efficient when running at a constant speed at rated load, when it is only used for charging you keep it at it's optimum

A car only needs about 15-20hp go drive at constant highway speed, but most people expect a few 100hp so acceleration isn't painfully slow, so in a classic ICE car the engine oversized and always running at a fraction of it's rated load. With a hybrid the ICE can be sized for the average load and the battery provides the peak power for acceleration

[coppice]

You are, what, 25 years late? What you describe is the ancient, classic hybrid vehicle, with no plug-in charging. It works and it has always worked due to the fact that internal combustion engine runs at colossally bad efficiency in city traffic conditions (accelerations, idling, etc.), so running the ICE smoothly in optimum conditions, charging batteries with it, and then use that charge to drive an electric motor has better efficiency - plus you can harvest braking energy, too.

These classic hybrids are only useful in city traffic (and occasional longer trips do not hurt too much). Although, I don't see a lot of point in such a 1990's retro thing in 2011+11+1, plug-in hybrids have been available for ages already and even pure EVs are really getting practical.

(I did not check what "Nissan E-Power" is, just replied based to your description.)

Its not quite the classic Toyota type of hybrid. This new Nissan system never drives the wheels directly from the engine. The engine is a pure battery charger, and the driving of the car is purely electric. It seems like that is never going to achieve the efficiency of the Toyota scheme, so the goal is not clear. Is it supposed to be cheaper to build or lighter than the Toyota system, and get a win that way?

[Siwastaja]

You are, what, 25 years late? What you describe is the ancient, classic hybrid vehicle, with no plug-in charging. It works and it has always worked due to the fact that internal combustion engine runs at colossally bad efficiency in city traffic conditions (accelerations, idling, etc.), so running the ICE smoothly in optimum conditions, charging batteries with it, and then use that charge to drive an electric motor has better efficiency - plus you can harvest braking energy, too.

These classic hybrids are only useful in city traffic (and occasional longer trips do not hurt too much). Although, I don't see a lot of point in such a 1990's retro thing in 2011+11+1, plug-in hybrids have been available for ages already and even pure EVs are really getting practical.

(I did not check what "Nissan E-Power" is, just replied based to your description.)

Its not quite the classic Toyota type of hybrid. This new Nissan system never drives the wheels directly from the engine. The engine is a pure battery charger, and the driving of the car is purely electric. It seems like that is never going to achieve the efficiency of the Toyota scheme, so the goal is not clear. Is it supposed to be cheaper to build or lighter than the Toyota system, and get a win that way?

Yeah, I got from the description that it's so called series hybrid, not the classic parallel hybrid ("parallel" referring to mechanical paralleling of the power sources at gearbox).

Why omit plug-in charging in year 2023 when some 2-3kW charger is trivially easy to implement and adds value is beyond me. Sounds like design driven by insane management with colossally stupid business values which make sense only on PowerPoint slides.

In days of NiMH cells, it kinda made sense to build medium-power low-energy packs, with no ability to plug-in charge. Parallel hybrid then provided peak power for higher speeds. (You don't need a lot of battery power to accelerate in city traffic, even if torque and motor current is high; because speed is low and power = speed * torque). But in series hybrid, if one wants to leverage the peak power of batteries to downsize the ICE to match average cruising power required, that means the batteries need to supply quite high current. And unless one wants to use some special snowflake 50C discharge rate power cells, a sane design would just use large enough battery capacity to give the power capability. Which then brings quite some energy storage as well, say at least for 40-50km of drive, order of magnitude more than the old parallel hybrids of 1990's. It is ridiculously stupid not to allow user plug-in charge such significant storage; a typical commuter could do most of their daily driving fully electric. The stupidity of forcing gasoline use when technology exists in the car to drive electric is amplified by today's significant renewable production and electricity spot pricing, and car's ability to store energy.

[sokoloff]

Why omit plug-in charging in year 2023 when some 2-3kW charger is trivially easy to implement and adds value is beyond me. Sounds like design driven by insane management with colossally stupid business values which make sense only on PowerPoint slides.

I'd expect that was driven by the sales pitch side of things, rather than the engineering side.

"Don't worry, Mr & Mrs Smith; this E-Power car never needs to be plugged in. You just put gas in it like like all the other cars that you're used to. You don't need to modify anything in your house, worry about finding a plug, or anything like that."

[coppice]

You are, what, 25 years late? What you describe is the ancient, classic hybrid vehicle, with no plug-in charging. It works and it has always worked due to the fact that internal combustion engine runs at colossally bad efficiency in city traffic conditions (accelerations, idling, etc.), so running the ICE smoothly in optimum conditions, charging batteries with it, and then use that charge to drive an electric motor has better efficiency - plus you can harvest braking energy, too.

These classic hybrids are only useful in city traffic (and occasional longer trips do not hurt too much). Although, I don't see a lot of point in such a 1990's retro thing in 2011+11+1, plug-in hybrids have been available for ages already and even pure EVs are really getting practical.

(I did not check what "Nissan E-Power" is, just replied based to your description.)

Its not quite the classic Toyota type of hybrid. This new Nissan system never drives the wheels directly from the engine. The engine is a pure battery charger, and the driving of the car is purely electric. It seems like that is never going to achieve the efficiency of the Toyota scheme, so the goal is not clear. Is it supposed to be cheaper to build or lighter than the Toyota system, and get a win that way?

Yeah, I got from the description that it's so called series hybrid, not the classic parallel hybrid ("parallel" referring to mechanical paralleling of the power sources at gearbox).

Why omit plug-in charging in year 2023 when some 2-3kW charger is trivially easy to implement and adds value is beyond me. Sounds like design driven by insane management with colossally stupid business values which make sense only on PowerPoint slides.

When trying to figure out the logic of odd car designs always allow for taxation. Tax rules are high on the list of engineering constraints. Its why every 1600cc engine is really 1595cc and every 2000cc is really 1995cc. You might find the Nissan system is very tax friendly in a major market or two.

[ace1903]

Sudden acceleration and deceleration are difficult from pollution point especially for diesel engine.
Battery acts to filter out power surges and puts engine into mode where is most efficient and also combustion products can be controlled easily NOx CO particulate matter.
There is no point to put charger as the battery is optimized to serve power surges and not range. It is more like capacitor and not like classical battery.
 

 

[coppice]

Sudden acceleration and deceleration are difficult from pollution point especially for diesel engine.
Battery acts to filter out power surges and puts engine into mode where is most efficient and also combustion products can be controlled easily NOx CO particulate matter.
There is no point to put charger as the battery is optimized to serve power surges and not range. It is more like capacitor and not like classical battery.
 

The Nissan system doesn't seem to be optimised for any operational parameters. Its fuel consumption is quite poor. Reviewers used to hybrids seem quite shocked how thirsty the Nissans are. I assume they have other goals, which is why tax conditions seems likely.

[fourfathom]

Why omit plug-in charging in year 2023 when some 2-3kW charger is trivially easy to implement and adds value is beyond me. Sounds like design driven by insane management with colossally stupid business values which make sense only on PowerPoint slides.

Just guessing, but perhaps the battery is only sized to provide transient power (as ace1903 suggested).  Without the ICE engine for charging, the battery would quickly go dead (within a few miles?) so including a plug-in charger would add no real benefit.

This is the way some ships and most locomotives operate, although the reasons are practical, not marketing-driven.  I don't know what, if any, batteries these use.

[jonpaul]

The  Electric car concept is just another Governmnet scheme to deny   free choice so the the beurocrats and "experts" can steal more of our money and freedom.

Why should $7,500 of USA taxpayers money be given as a bribe to rich E car buyers?

Becasue they would not otherwise buy the Tesla and other overpriced E cars

Just my thoughts....

j

[Siwastaja]

Just guessing, but perhaps the battery is only sized to provide transient power (as ace1903 suggested).  Without the ICE engine for charging, the battery would quickly go dead (within a few miles?) so including a plug-in charger would add no real benefit.

My earlier post was too messy to be understood, so I'll elaborate:
Classic parallel hybrid used a small battery (just a few miles). Problem with batteries is, they don't come with much more than maybe 10C discharge rates. So a 2kWh pack would deliver maybe 20kW peak power. Now 20kW peak power is more than enough for accelerating up to say 40km/h, or driving uphill at 40km/h, i.e. city traffic use, but way too little for accelerating from 100km/h to say 130km/h - or driving uphill fast. So they can't use series hybrid strategy, running all power from the batteries - hence, they used parallel hybrid, so that they can start the gasoline engine when speed increases over city driving speeds, and it can supply mechanical power directly to the wheels while the batteries rest (or are charged slowly).

Now if you choose to do a series hybrid, you'd need to supply say 50-60kW peak battery power at very least, which brings us the choice - invest in some super-special-high-discharge rate battery chemistry which can do 30C reliably. Or simply use more usual batteries, and just build a larger capacity pack. Given modern li-ion, some 10kWh pack is surprisingly lightweight. You get the peak power this way - and what you also get is more capacity, smaller SoC variation range under normal hybrid operation so increased battery life (so you can run the pack between say 60%-40% instead of 90%-10%). This larger pack size then brings the new opportunity of adding a plug-in charger. Yeah, for a 5km range it doesn't make sense, but I think for 20-30km it already does. That's the daily commute for many.

[mtwieg]

Need to inject some actual numbers into this...

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).

Yeah a lot of these different varieties of new vehicles are contrived to take advantage of various regulations and incentives. And marketing is marketing. This case doesn't seem too extraordinary, at a glance. 

[Siwastaja]

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.

[sokoloff]

I’m inclined to give credit that Nissan has thought more about how to engineer this car than all of us put together and then multiplied by a factor of several thousand.

[Siwastaja]

I’m inclined to give credit that Nissan has thought more about how to engineer this car than all of us put together and then multiplied by a factor of several thousand.

This is the stupidest argument ever. It's a variation of "you can't comment negatively about a movie, they are all very well done because they are done by professionals, do better if you can".

Besides, this is an expert forum. Some of us have actually worked designing cars. The fact you don't have high self-esteem is irrelevant - don't project it to others.

[f4eru]

This Nissan concept is obsolete Junk.
Nowadays it's electric or nothing, economically speaking.
Getting a new car as hybrid is a really bad decision, because in 2-3 years, resale value will have dropped like a stone to almost zero, probably even less than ICE.

[schmitt trigger]

Getting a new car as hybrid is a really bad decision, because in 2-3 years, resale value will have dropped like a stone to almost zero, probably even less than ICE.

Would you please elaborate? I am curious why this would happen.

[nctnico]

You are, what, 25 years late? What you describe is the ancient, classic hybrid vehicle, with no plug-in charging. It works and it has always worked due to the fact that internal combustion engine runs at colossally bad efficiency in city traffic conditions (accelerations, idling, etc.), so running the ICE smoothly in optimum conditions, charging batteries with it, and then use that charge to drive an electric motor has better efficiency - plus you can harvest braking energy, too.

These classic hybrids are only useful in city traffic (and occasional longer trips do not hurt too much). Although, I don't see a lot of point in such a 1990's retro thing in 2011+11+1, plug-in hybrids have been available for ages already and even pure EVs are really getting practical.

(I did not check what "Nissan E-Power" is, just replied based to your description.)

Its not quite the classic Toyota type of hybrid. This new Nissan system never drives the wheels directly from the engine. The engine is a pure battery charger, and the driving of the car is purely electric. It seems like that is never going to achieve the efficiency of the Toyota scheme, so the goal is not clear. Is it supposed to be cheaper to build or lighter than the Toyota system, and get a win that way?

Maybe. Or it is a way around Toyota's patents or something. A while ago I researched a bunch of hybrids in order to figure out what car to get next. It turns out the hybrids from Toyota are the most efficient ones and cheap to maintain. The other car manufacturers seem to be unable to make a really good and efficient hybrid car.

Looking at the e-power specs / reviews it seems like Nissan tries to emulate an electric car rather than making a car that is really efficient and/or maintenance friendly. I have looked at small, turbocharged petrol engines as well but most are not very durable or cheap to maintain. All in all I'm not convinced the Nissan e-power is a car worth buying if you plan to drive it for a long time (>300k km).

[Siwastaja]

It turns out the hybrids from Toyota are the most efficient ones and cheap to maintain.

Well, generally it has been true for decades that if you want a maybe boring but reliable, cheap to maintain, low fuel consumption car, just get a Toyota, so it's not surprising - even when Toyota has been reluctant to move on and instead stay in ancient hybrid concepts, they do that pretty well so are still competitive. If you want an ancient non-plug in hybrid, then of course get a Toyota. However, I would seriously look at full electric now, if you are looking for a new car. (Me, I will be driving my 1996 Carina E which still goes below 5.5 liters/100km for my 60km once-or-two-per-week commute from the countryside to the office, and I will keep welding for inspections. I paid 790 euros for it some four years ago, no way I would get a new car so soon!)

[nctnico]

The current crop of electric cars doesn't work for me. Too expensive to charge (will be using 100% public charging of which 80% public fast charging), lack of charging infrastructure where we need to go and it takes too long to charge. I'll wait for better batteries + faster charging or hydrogen. Until then, hybrid it is (at least the ones that actually do save fuel).

[AndyBeez]

Greenwashing aside, I can understand the concept of combining the continuous torque of an electric motor with the lower unit price of charging/generating with gasoline. We already have diesel electric railway locomotives, so why not for cars (sic)? Extrapolating, one could replace the gasoline engine with a steam engine. Which poetically combines the latest car technology with the very first self propelled vehicle.

[mtwieg]

This Nissan concept is obsolete Junk.
Nowadays it's electric or nothing, economically speaking.
Getting a new car as hybrid is a really bad decision, because in 2-3 years, resale value will have dropped like a stone to almost zero, probably even less than ICE.

1. Most people don't view a car as a financial vehicle (pun not intended) to be flipped.
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).
3. Access to chargers is one of the major barriers to adoption for EVs, especially among those who do not own homes. If you think they're making a "really bad decision" by buying a non-EV, please explain how owning and operating an EV without a charger at home is actually fine and good.

[bdunham7]

Getting a new car as hybrid is a really bad decision, because in 2-3 years, resale value will have dropped like a stone to almost zero, probably even less than ICE.

My cars are getting a bit old and I sincerely hope you are correct because I'd love to replace mine in the next few years with a cheaper-then-dirt 2-3 year old hybrid like a Prius Prime, RAV-4 Prime or ideally, a XC60/XC90 Recharge.  However I'm pretty sure that your predictions here aren't going to be very accurate...

ICE cars are still selling strongly and plug-in hybrids are very rare on dealer lots.  My local Ford dealers have 79 Mach-Es in stock between them and the local overstuffed Tesla center has all models for immediate delivery.  They just tried to rent some land from the city for an overflow lot and got rejected by the NIMBYs.  Meanwhile, the RAV-4 Primes are sold before they even arrive at the dealer.