Anyone waiting for Nissan to join the hybrid car race shouldn’t hold their breath just yet – with reports suggesting the prototype has some way to go before it can reach production.
According to Autoweek, the Nissan hybrid is scheduled to arrive in 2010 but during a test drive with journalists last week many kinks were discovered including some awkward lags when the engine kicked in to assist the electric motor. Furthermore, the project manager also admitted that deceleration was jerky because of battery regeneration.
Nevertheless, Nissan has high hopes for the model – its first in-house hybrid; its only previous hybrid production being the Nissan Altima, which is equipped with a Toyota developed system.
Nissan’s vice-president for product development Atsushi Shizuta says the model won’t be a standalone hybrid like the Toyota Prius, but will instead be a hybrid version of a current nameplate. The test version was an Infiniti G35 but its unclear at this point whether the final hybrid model will have a new nameplate.
The electric motor will be powered by lithium-ion batteries, which weigh less and can produce more power than the current generation of nickel-hydride batteries. By contrast, Toyota and Honda plan to stick with nickel-hydride batteries for their next generation hybrids due to be released next year.
