Nissan ready to bring EVs to APAC

Electrification is now a part of corporate fleet strategies in Europe and becoming increasingly important in North America. But also in the Asia Pacific region it makes sense to consider the adoption of new powertrains for your fleet. At least in the more mature markets like Japan and South Korea and in markets where taxation and legislation are supporting fleet electrification, like China and Thailand, or Singapore in the near future. However, charging infrastructure is still lacking in many markets. That’s where Nissan e-Power can be useful, said Yasuhiro Konta, Senior Manager Global Corporate Sales Nissan at the 2021 Global Fleet Summit APAC.

Nissan’s vision for the future calls for zero emissions and zero emissions, which it wants to achieve by a combination of vehicle electrification and vehicles intelligence.

Charging infrastructure, however, is lacking in many markets. In 2019, Japan had the highest number of public chargers, 22,000. South Korea was second with 9,500 and Australia third with 2,000. All other countries have far less, leaving much margin for growth.

This is where Nissan’s e-Power can come in handy. You could say it’s just Nissan’s take on hybrid technology, but there's more to it. Traditionally, a hybrid car is powered by a petrol engine, assisted by an electric motor. Nissan turns things around, using the battery-electric technology they perfected in the Nissan Leaf, to which they added a petrol engine to charge the battery pack when needed.

Nissan e-Power should deliver powerful and smooth acceleration, making for a fun and easy driving experience. Efficiency levels are much better than those of a normal engine – filling up two times a month should be enough if three times were needed for a petrol-powered car.

At the end of last year, Nissan launched the new Note e-Power compact car and the Kicks e-Power came onto the market in June 2020. A first all-electric crossover, the Ariya, is also expected to hit the markets soon.

In another session, Associate Partner Vivek Vaidya of Frost & Sullivan confirmed electrification is a very important trend in the region. However, it is also one of the most important markets for two-wheelers – a market that also has a large number of vehicles used by delivery companies and shared mobility companies. Electric two-wheelers can therefore be expected to grow in importance as well. 

For corporate fleet managers  the advice is to be prepared. This means to follow up closely the legislation and taxation policies in the various countries and to start examining where based on market offering, infrastructure and driver profiling the piloting with electric vehicles and e-mobility can be organised. 

Image: Nissan Note e-Power (copyright: Nissan)