Nissan is leading £2 billion worth of investment into its Sunderland plant to prepare it to build the new Leaf and electric successors to the Juke and Qashqai.

The first two of those models are imminent: the Leaf will arrive this year, the Juke soon after in 2026. But plans for the next-generation Qashqai EV have quietly been pushed back, due to uncertainty over EV uptake and regulations. Given the continued popularity of the segment-defining family crossover, that’s an understandable move.

Instead, Nissan is investing in further developing its hybrid technology and focusing on updating and improving the current Qashqai to keep it competitive against the baying pack of rivals that are all vying to be the ‘Qashqai rival’ of choice. You know the ones: the Ford Kuga, Kia Sportage, Honda HR-V, Dacia Bigster and many, many others.

Of particular focus is work to upgrade the Qashqai e-Power hybrid, which arrived in the UK in 2022 and has quickly become one of the most popular variants. This year it will gain what is classed as a whole new generation of the unusual hybrid system – and Autocar has had a short first taste.

How Nissan’s e-Power hybrid works – and what’s new

Nissan’s e-Power hybrid is notably different from the traditional parallel full hybrid systems. Those systems feature a combustion engine and an electric motor that both send power directly to the wheels, depending on the prevailing circumstances.

By contrast, Nissan’s e-Power system uses only the motor to drive the wheels, with the 1.5-litre four-cylinder petrol engine essentially used purely as a generator to power the motor and charge the 1.8kWh battery. 

Akihito Shibuya, Nissan’s powertrain engineering director, said that the system was derived from technology developed for the Leaf, rather than a ICE powertrain that had been electrified. “It’s a different course of evolution,” he said, one that gives a driving experience “close to that of an EV".

Nissan launched the e-Power system in 2016, although the first generation was only offered in Japan. The second generation came in 2022 in the Qashqai e-Power, and Nissan has now developed a third generation, which draws even more closely from the Leaf and Ariya.

While Nissan claims the new e-Power system offers significant upgrades, you do have to look closely to spot them.

The engine is said to be an entirely new unit; it remains a 1.5-litre turbo petrol four and uses the same basic architecture, but the mapping has been reworked to optimise its function as a generator. 

“Thermal efficiency is the most important factor for a combustion engine, so we can increase fuel efficiency by making it run at a a lower RPM more constantly,” Shibuya noted.

Essentially, the engine is mapped to maintain the speed that most efficiently allows it to generate energy, which Shibuya said also reduces vibrations and noise.

Meanwhile, the motor has been more extensively reworked with learnings from Nissan’s EVs. It’s actually a new 'five-in-one unit' featuring the motor, generator, inverter, increaser and reverter. That reduces the size, which improves the packaging, and aids efficiency by making the system more unified and responsive.

The most notable impact of the new system is that output has risen from 188bhp to 201bhp, with torque remaining unchanged at 243lb ft. But more substantially, Nissan claims a 15% increase in fuel efficiency – which would push the official fuel economy close to 60mpg – and a significant reduction in both cabin noise (up to 5.6dB) and vibrations.

What is the new Qashqai e-Power like to drive?

Autocar had an early taste in a late prototype of a Qashqai e-Power fitted with the new third-generation system at Nissan’s Grandrive test facility in Yokosuka, Japan. We were given the chance to test the new model back-to-back with a current-spec Qashqai e-Power, allowing for a direct comparison of the upgrades.

The Grandrive facility features a reasonable mix of high-speed straights and bends, along with some sections emulating bumpy and uneven road surfaces, but a few laps of a test track offered no chance to judge that promised fuel economy improvement – likely to be the key selling point of the upgraded hybrid to potential Qashqai buyers.

Still, the test did hint at the increased refinement the upgrades powertrain offered. It’s a small step, rather than a giant leap, but one that is discernible.

The extra power is hard to detect, although given this is a Qashqai, you’re hardly likely to be calling upon the far extremes of the torque or output very often anyway. 

But the car does run notably quieter, with the engine a bit smoother. In the current car, hard acceleration can cause the engine to whine as it pushes to deliver the energy the motor is calling for. In the new one, it seems notably more chilled, running at a more constant speed, with the power more freely available when called upon. That said, it does create a little bit of dissonance between your pedal inputs and the engine note.

It's a little smoother too, although claims of offering an EV-like driving experience are relative. With Nissan’s e-Pedal system applied, you can drive it somewhat like an EV, and at slow speeds it's very calm, but ultimately all the energy being deployed still comes from burning petrol.

Still, it’s an amiably pleasant drive, just as you would expect from a Qashqai. It’s maybe a little smoother too. Just don’t expect any added dynamism or pep. Which, let’s be honest, you probably weren’t, because this is a Qashqai. Practical family motoring, this, and nothing wrong with that.

Quieter than before? I’d say so, although again it’s relative. Ultimately, the new e-Power system doesn’t make this hybrid feel like a Qashqai EV. But while we wait for that, subtle improvements are probably enough to keep the crossover’s huge success story rolling along nicely.

The key though, will be whether that promise of improved fuel economy is delivered in the real world.

Nissan Qashqai e-Power prototype

Price £33,000 (est)

Engine 3 cyls, 1498cc, turbo, petrol, plus electric motor

Power 201bhp

Torque 243lb ft

Gearbox 1-spd reduction gear, FWD

Kerb weight 1612kg

0-62mph 8.5sec (est)

Top speed 105mph

Economy 60mpg (est)

CO2, tax band TBC

Rivals Kia Sportage Hybrid, Toyota C-HR