Nissan Qashqai e-Power real life test yields disappointing results

04 February 2023
Nissan spent a considerable amount of time on development and marketing of its e-Power drivetrain that was promised to be the next best thing, for life only to prove it wasn’t.

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  • Anonymous

Little big man, 27 Aug 2023I’ve had a qashqai epower since feb 23 and prior to this a Land Rover discovery sport diesel. ... moreGo on the motorway set cruise at 70mph reset fuel trip and then see what you get for mpg. I have a nissan pulsar 1.5dci very quiet on the motorway recently did 300+ mile drive door to door with cruise set at 72mph achieved 74.3 mpg. For the whole journey.

I’ve had a qashqai epower since feb 23 and prior to this a Land Rover discovery sport diesel. I find this article completely wrong based on my experience so far of 2.7k miles. I average up to 80 mpgs but normally 60 ish on urban driving and on longer motorway journeys approx 63mpgs. My Land Rover discovery which was diesel did 40s urban and 55 mpgs on long journeys. My Land Rover was 2wd too. This article also fails to mention the particulates from diesel or the nitrogen oxides. The ICE runs on average 35% of the time on all journeys !

  • Anonymous

Little big man, 13 Aug 2023I’ve had a qashqai epower since feb 23 and prior to this a Land Rover discovery sport diesel. ... moreThe same experience

I’ve had a qashqai epower since feb 23 and prior to this a Land Rover discovery sport diesel. I find this article completely wrong based on my experience so far of 2.7k miles. I average up to 80 mpgs but normally 60 ish on urban driving and on longer motorway journeys approx 63mpgs. My Land Rover discovery which was diesel did 40s urban and 55 mpgs on long journeys. My Land Rover was 2wd too. This article also fails to mention the particulates from diesel or the nitrogen oxides. The ICE runs on average 35% of the time on all journeys !

  • MarJan

David, 23 Feb 2023This review and comparison is really interesting and nearly entirely incompatible. I should... moreDavid thank you for opinion based on hard facts instead of emotions. I'm goig to book test drive having in mind what you wrote. Thank you again.

  • Mike

Anonymous, 18 Mar 2023I recently bought the e power and I am really disappointed. I do an average of 40 miles to w... moreIt's all your fault. All test drives explain very well that all hybrids (and particullary this) suck on higway because of battery heavy load. And they cannot beat (yet) a diesel.
They are brilliant in city where you have a lot of couple starting from 0, you have regen and you don't have engine noise.
So next time open your eyes and blame others.
And generally how do you expect to progress? Or you think an afternight miracle will born next day a "green" solution for world pollution? Wake up dude...

  • Anonymous

David, 23 Feb 2023This review and comparison is really interesting and nearly entirely incompatible. I should... moreI recently bought the e power and I am really disappointed.
I do an average of 40 miles to work daily most of it on the motorway. The fuel consumption has been atrocious. The performance on hill climbs is terrible. Water drops in when you open the door. Terrible noise sometimes from the engines. I feel duped .

This review and comparison is really interesting and nearly entirely incompatible.

I should note I do own a Qashqai EPower, have done for 3 months. I don’t love the car but there is also some reasons to like it and it really depends on your circumstances.

Firstly these cars listed have some significant differences:
The Toyota c-hr is a small suv, like the T-roc so of course they weigh less, suffer less drag and therefore should be more efficient. not relevant to anyone looking for a larger car.
The T-roc again isn’t relevant in terms of power. It doesn’t specify whether it’s the 1.5 130ps or 150ps variant but this just doesn’t have compatible power or acceleration particularly if the 130ps. Again less powerful cars would be expected to have better fuel economy.
The BMW X1 is more expensive, so much so it falls under premium car tax here in the uk, an added circa £500 per year, higher rated emissions so higher tax anyway. It’s also 4wd so it will be less efficient, especially at low speeds. You’d like to think though you’d get a better car for handing over more money.
i could go on but other differences are more slight.

Secondly the test speeds. Not only is 87mph an irrelevant efficiency test condition but the Nissan isn’t marketed for being a motorway/long distance cruiser, it’s a large suv for city and urban driving. Weirdly enough it does the city drive rather efficiently for its class. Like all electric motor based cars it struggles at higher speeds. Note all these hybrids have notably lower top speeds than the pure petrol alternatives. Ask any Tesla, or pure electric car driver how far they get while driving at 80+mph. Their range drops…

3rd we’ve no information about the fixed speed tests. Is it a rolling road or on the motorway with traffic? If the latter and most likely the conditions will vary so the results will vary. If the former then it won’t acknowledge one of the key differences with the e-power Which is Regenerative braking. It won’t make a huge difference but it will have an impact. In the video at higher speeds the Nissan is shown to be driven in B-mode with the eco setting. This isn’t the best or recommended efficiency mode Nissan tells you to drive in at high speeds. The reviewer should be driving in D-mode and in eco for best efficiency as this removes nearly all regenerative breaking. Note most other hybrids you can’t turn it off or down very much. Think about it if you drive in an open road you don’t want the car braking every time you lift off the accelerator, you want to free-wheel and use all inputted energy to keep going before adding more, there is some inefficiencies in any braking system even if it puts most energy back to the battery. When I drive on the motorway I would say there would be at least a 3-4mpg difference in driving in these two modes. This is one part of the reason a lot of hybrid drivers and cars don’t live up to expected fuel figures as people don’t realise these sort of settings make bigger differences.

I picked the Nissan over the Hyundai and RAV4 (the only hybrid direct competitors here) because:
- it’s actually the fastest out of the lot up to legal speed limits, a perk of being electric motor driven only.
- it’s super smooth to drive, no clunky CVT, it’s very responsive off the line and at any point.
- it’s safer, I don’t recall the review but at the right spec it’s one of the 10 safest cars in the road at the moment, bought it for a growing family.
- it has the lowest rated emissions of the 3 so has the lowest tax.
- the interior quality is better in my opinion.

Some things to note though:
- the battery is too small, this is obviously to save cost and weight but the car could have been so much better at low speed efficiency especially if the battery was say 4-5kWh,
- realistically driving 70mph on motorways you’ll get 42-47mpg. In city about the same and on 40-60mph conditions it is far better at around 60-80mpg. However all depending on the charge of the battery. I’ve set off in the city with a 80% full battery and got 95mpg, then done the same journey again on a 30% battery and got 18mpg. As the engine in low battery instances needs to drive both motor and charge the battery it runs hard over a short journey and makes the petrol range non-reactive in instance and swing suddenly in others.
- the engine idles under normal conditions at 3200rpm, it’ll slow in revs if you slow the car to low speeds where wind noise etc won’t mask the sound. All very clever but if you stop fairly quickly the car takes a good 3-5 seconds to realise and you’ll sit there with an engine rattling away and even when it steps down the engine is still course.
- the engine again. It’s not a particularly impressive, efficient or powerful unit in any measure. Why they’ve used this only tells you they opted for something readily available in their back catalogue
- the second battery, this to my knowledge does the lights, A/c etc. with the engine being off a lot of the time there is nothing to charge this battery. So even when you cruise along just on battery alone if you go for long enough I.e in traffic the engine is forced on, not to charge the larger battery connected to the motor but just so it can charge the little traditional battery. Im not sure if it would be possible due to differences in voltage etc but this is what the larger battery would have ideally have integrated and again could have been larger to accommodate.

  • Nicola

This review is pointless.

First of all, this is the only compact suv or crossover that offers in such space 55liters of reserve capacity.

Second, in the test they are completely draining the EV part first. Which is not really the best if you want to test it in real world conditions.

Third, at 120km/h it looks good. If you drive constantly at 140km/h it’s your fault. Not the car. In almost all EU countries the limit is 120/130km/h. In Austria or Switzerland for example many highway blocks are 110km/h.

Also it’s about how much you regenerate power.

The Nissan QQ e-power is the ONLY crossover / compact SUV on the market with all these checkmarks (find another one at same size if you can): 55L tank, 505L trunk capacity, emission CO2 120gr. full full optional with roof, heated seats, and all you can desire with less than 48k. And Tekna with packs comes around 44k.

Find me another compact SUV with these features at that price. Audi Q3 hybrid same with same feature (and less) is 60k plus.

I don't believe elec aspecially plugins are going to work their will be car dealers going out of buisness lack of sale cars far to expensive i believe some dealers are going all electric it's not going to work when they can get cars to do ateist 400 mile on a charge may be that's with useing all componets in car

  • GillesC

Ben, 11 Feb 2023Why the complaints mpg is how you drive. You don’t expect to be stepping on the pedals and not... moreI agree. I have a tekna+ for a few months and I love it. The e-power concept is great. EV confort without the recharging worry. Go Nissan!!

  • Ben

Anonymous, 05 Feb 2023Yes I agreed The Nissan Serena E power is also the same very disappointing.Why the complaints mpg is how you drive. You don’t expect to be stepping on the pedals and not consuming fuel. I have the e power for three months now. I have only filled my tank twice and I have driven 1500miles already. I still have over 200 miles of fuel range in my Nissan qashqai e power tekna plus. Study the car and know how to use it.

Jimbob, 09 Feb 2023I have had the epower 2 months I am more than happy with with the fuel consumption and the ove... moreGood for you, would not touch it with a 10-meter pole. Hopefully they can make it better next time ... if there will be next time and Nissan won't switch to pure EV by then.

  • Jimbob

I have had the epower 2 months I am more than happy with with the fuel consumption and the overall driving experience. Once the seats are down the room in the back is massive, room for 2 sets of golf clubs 2 trolleys and luggage. Very happy with it

  • Beery

Got the 1.5 eats the fuel ⛽ 🤷‍♂️🤷‍♂️🤷‍♂️❤

Maybe it is time to make the charging ICE based on GEET tech

  • Anonymous

Yes I agreed
The Nissan Serena E power is also the same very disappointing.

If you recall a lot of people calling CVT as a vacuum cleaner ... e-Power is two vacuum cleaners and on turbo mode - that is probably even worse than horrid consumption.

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