After six months, 10,000 km and a new band, it is unfortunately time to return the little Nissan Qashqai e-Power.
Just as we said that in November, when we published our long-term introduction a month after delivery, the small hybrid SUV proves dozens of trips to the long long, proves a tour of around 200 km every time we were the preservators of it.
Apart from the loss of tires in the first right for one of the cunning pits of Victoria, it turned out to be a competent and comfortable highway cruiser that came as a surprise, given his login details.
It could also be seen as our “police car” in the video Where we compared Waze, maps and the speedometer of a car with a police specification laser. Although it was not seen much, it was the perfect car for the job.
With a fully charged battery, the Qashqai was able to sit still, let the heated seats run (we must finally keep Paul comfortable) and feed the laser through his 12V -inland socket.
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It was also the wearer of our auto-to-car tracking camera for dozens of videos that you might have viewed. When we film on the Proving Ground, we always do a round of the song with a camera that is mounted on a tracking car to make some moving recordings for the video.
The Qashqai has done a good job and offered a smooth base thanks to comfortable suspension and sufficient power to keep track of some of the sports cars that we have filmed.
The rear storage is another surprise with the Qashqai. Although it is classified as a small SUV, it has enough space in the boot for all film equipment that we wear to a shoot.
Usually it consists of a large suitcase (the infamous red ‘subscribe’ suitcase that you may have spied in an inverted camera), a large pelican cupboard, tripod, a plate of water and a selection of other loose items.
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Normally I would put down the back seats, just to gain access to things easier as soon as a shoot starts. However, you can all fit it behind the second row if you are stacked correctly.
It’s not so good
That said, now the bad. The seats, although comfortable, are not good for Australian summers.
The leather on it turns into a glue -like substance on a hot day, and after they run on the forefront soil with a camera in the elements, the last thing I want to do is because I know that I have to peel myself from them.
They do have perforations in the inserts, but there is no cooling function. Nissan If you read this, add cooling. For every manufacturer reading this, ventilated seats must be standard in Australia.
The other negative is the infotainment system. The touchscreen is large with 12.3 inches, but the camera view is almost useless unless you are in perfect lighting conditions. Mounting a GoPro on the back and connecting to my phone for live viewing would offer a better camera.
In my long-term introduction about the Qashqai I spoke about Apple CarPlay problems. This only seems to have gotten worse; Beyond the drop-outs by toll gantries that cause a long-term delay, a new problem has developed …
If you get in the car and switch it on and send, wireless Apple CarPlay will connect and work well. However, if you do a few short disks – for example, shopping – and you are in and out of the car, CarPlay will often come loose and not come back, regardless of what you do. Even enclosing via a cable does not work.
I found the only way to repair it was to completely disconnect and remove the car from my phone and my phone from the car and then reconnecting to correct. This is not something I have had with other long -term vehicles in which I have spent time.
Eventually I gave up the wireless CarPlay and just returned to Wired, which usually solved the problems. But sometimes the ghosts still cause drop-outs.
It may seem like a small thing, but if your phone fails and you cannot reconnect and travel through a new place, it can be a disaster.
The dynamics of the rich quality and handling are great, but 95 percent of the time I was on a highway anyway on a highway, so the fact that the infotainment is good.
Hopefully that is something that Nissan has solved with the recently launched Qashqai Facelift. Yes, you will notice that our test vehicle here is the pre-update My24 Nissan Qashqai Ti e-Power, but the powertrain and substantiation remains the same.
Traveling with the Qashqai
I will precede this part by saying that this trip was not a big journey, but it was clear to how the Qashqai e-Power behaves on the open.
During a weekend trip from Melbourne to Ballarat, a tour of about 400 km from my house, I expected that fuel consumption would be terrible. It is not a long drive, but it is winding on a motorcycle car. Many hills, many heights and, yes, many speed zone variations – the worst nightmare of good fuel consumption.
But I was very surprised by the result. At the end of the trip it had an average of 4.9 l/100 km. Since you cannot control the engine speed in the E-Power and the small 2.1kWh battery is not designed for long-distance travel, this is a great result.
The best distance I ever got from a full tank was 981 km, when my average speed was 67 km/h and the car indicated the consumption of 5.2 l/100 km, which is still very good. So covering more than 1000 km is a tank well within the rich of the possibility.
However, the ergonomics of the Qashqai car is not very well designed for long-distance driving. The seats begin to become a bit stiff and sticky after a few hours – something that can be solved with a ventilation function …
And the tires, although designed to be economic, are noisy. As soon as you get coarse chip roads outside the city, they become very drony and require a rather dramatic increase in music volume to drown the sound.
Conversely, the suspension is surprisingly comfortable. The Qashqai runs well on the bumps and dips of regional roads and always feels like he is retaining his calmness. Cruising at 110 km/h on the open road is not the natural habitat, but the Nissan will be happy to do it all day.
It must be said that if you have loaded the Qashqai with four adults, this would be a different story – but for two people and their luggage, this car really hits the goal. It also looks great in blue!
In general, however, I think the e-Power system could use some work. It is a great, unique powertrain concept, and with some development it can be a good Toyota Hybrid -Rival. But it needs a larger battery and a more refined and more economical, engine to make it really good work will be the next Gen-E-Power System that will be released in 2026, which will also solve that.
Yet every car that can travel 1000 km between fillings is pretty good.
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