nissan plays catch up to tesla on electric costs, but still punting on fossil drivetrains

Source: Nissan

Japanese automaker Nissan has presented a new approach to “electrified” powertrain development, as the company that once led the world with the first mass-market fully electric vehicle – the Leaf – plays catch up to global leader Tesla.

Nissan this week unveiled the “X-in-1”, which is probably more the marketing term it sounds like than a technical one.  The company says it includes “zero-emission” and “e-power” (read hybrid) powertrains that will be shared and modularised.

It says it hopes that will result in a 30% reduction in development and manufacturing costs by 2026, compared to 2019. But to put the scale of its challenge in perspective, it falls well short of Tesla’s flagged 50 per cent cuts on fully electric vehicles that that company is targeting with its Master Plan 3.

The “X-in-1” approach covers two drive trains. The fully electric 3-in-1 EV and the “e-power” (hybrid) 5-in-1.

The 3-in-1 refers to the modulisation of the electric motor, the inverter and the reducer. The 5-in-1 refers to the additional generator and “increaser” used by the petrol engine in a hybrid to generate electricity.

Nissan says the X-in-1 approach has been developed to enable EV and e-POWER core components to be produced on the same line.

nissan plays catch up to tesla on electric costs, but still punting on fossil drivetrains

Fully electric and hybrid e-power drivetrains

Nissan is still focused on petrol powered vehicles

While it sounds good, this approach signals that Nissan will continue to fund development of petrol powered hybrid cars which come under the “e-power” hybrid banner.

The announcement was made at Nissan’s “Electrified Powertrains Seminar“. In a presentation that lasted 40 minutes, Nissan reveals much about its approach.

It reconfirmed its 2021 goal to be carbon neutral by 2050, still nearly 30 years from now, and the company says its aim is to electrify all new models in key markets by the early 2030s.

Through a translator, Nissan’s senior vice president Toshihiro Hirai said: “By 2030 our electrification mix is expected to reach 55% globally and we will introduce 27 electrified vehicles including 19 EVs.” But to put this into context, many analysts believe that global EV market share will be over 90% by 2030.

nissan plays catch up to tesla on electric costs, but still punting on fossil drivetrains

Nissan Electrified Powertrain Seminar March 09, 2023. Source: Nissan

The presentation shows that rather than putting all its engineering focus and resources into fully electric vehicles, Nissan still sees the transition to EVs as some kind of “evolution” where designs slowly move from fully ICE vehicles (internal combustion engine), through a hybrid phase to fully electric.

This is shown in the green graph above where vehicles move from ICE to “e-POWER” hybrids then to fully electric “zero emission”.

This is where the “electrified” rather than “electric” language comes from. Automakers such as Nissan are using the term electrified to describe hybrid petrol burning cars. This is potentially misleading as “electrified” gives the impression that the car is fully electric when it actually still burns petrol generating exhaust pollution and greenhouse emissions.

The idea of a slow “evolution” of a powertrain where technology needs to progress from a 100% ICE system through a combination hybrid/ICE phase before reaching the final 100% electric phase is completely absurd. It’s like suggesting that to get to a smart phone you need to go through a phase where a phone has both a touchscreen and physical buttons.

The presentation appears to attempt to justify Nissan’s strategy of selling petrol powered hybrids rather than going all in on fully electric vehicles.

Do terms like “e-power” and “electrified” constitute greenwashing?

Using terms like “e-power” and “Electrified” to describe what are really petrol burning powertrains may bring Nissan to the attention of Australia’s Competition and Consumer watchdog (ACCC), which recently said it would start cracking down on greenwashing.

Just last week the ACCC released an analysis it had conducted of 247 businesses showing that over half had promoted concerning claims about environmental credentials such as overstating climate action to developing their own certification schemes.

The ACCC has indicated that in response to the analysis it will now step up its investigations of corporate greenwashing in Australia. In a 25 page complaint lodged last Friday, Greenpeace reported Toyota to the ACCC for misleading Australian consumers by understating its cars’ emissions and overstating its commitment to clean transport.

Toyota face’s fines of up to $A50 million and a ban on specific advertising if the ACCC finds them guilty.

nissan plays catch up to tesla on electric costs, but still punting on fossil drivetrains

Nissan “Electrified Powertrains Seminar” March 9, 2023. Source: Nissan

Nissan, of course, led the world with the release of the Nissan Leaf, but rather than accelerate the shift to EVs, it now boasts about using that technology to advance hybrids.

“Our company has been developing battery EV ahead of competition,” Hirai noted. “We knew the advantage of driving experience delivery of 100% [electric] motor driving from early on.”

The graph shown in the slide appears to show that there is some kind of correlation between the so called “powertrain evolution” on the horizontal axis and “Value” on the vertical axis.

An arrow shows four engine types moving from “naturally aspirated” and “downsized turbo” moving to “mild hybrids” and “strong hybrids”.

The graph suggests that the “powertrain evolution” is currently at the “strong hybrid” phase and that Nissan’s previous experience with the zero emission Leaf gives them an advantage with their “e-power hybrids”

Nissan “devolving” from world leader on EVs

After leading the world with the all-electric Nissan leaf which was launched in 2011 and was the best selling all-electric vehicle in Europe up until 2018, Nissan now appears to be devolving back to fossil fuel powertrains.

With hybrid vehicles need the myriad of components for both complex internal combustion engines and the additional electric motor and batteries, it is hard to see how these systems can be cheaper to make.

All-electric carmaker Tesla has also recently shown that it now has the technology to reduce the cost of production of its EVs from $US39,000 to under $US20,000 so Nissan’s hybrid evolution strategy makes no sense from a financial perspective.

While the world rapidly shift to EVs, Nissan, like its fellow Japanese automaker Toyota, appears to be determined to continue producing vehicles that run on fossil fuels.

Keyword: Nissan plays catch up to Tesla on electric costs, but still punting on fossil drivetrains

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