Nissan Future Powertrain Strategy for a Sustainable Society

In recent years the automotive industry has faced parallel and sometimes conflicting challenges of having to drastically reduce CO₂ and real world pollutant emissions in order to realize a healthy and sustainable society. Nissan’s proposed solution is a unique 2 pillar powertrain electrification strategy. The 1st pillar is BEV (Battery Electric Vehicles); Nissan led the automotive industry with the world’s first mass production BEV. Now, with the new 3rd generation “LEAF e+”, Nissan has a high performance product at a practical price. The 2nd pillar is “e-POWER” which provides all electric drive, with the electric power for the motor generated by an ICE. e-POWER gives the best customer satisfaction by providing a full “EV driving experience”, with good performance, without having to rely on a charging infrastructure and without a high cost premium. As a result Nissan has achieved best-segment sales figures in the Japanese market by applying e-POWER to a number of its models, such as the “NOTE e-POWER” and “SERENA e-POWER”. In this paper Nissan’s strategy, and its clear benefits, for both the environment and its customers, will be explained.