Nissan Electric Car With Range Extender In The Plans

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Originally published on EV Obsession.

Nissan is planning to add an electric vehicle with a range extender sometime in the future, according to recent reports.

The deputy general manager of electric car engineering at Nissan, Yoshi Shimoida, commented recently to Motoring that, “In the future, Nissan will add to the lineup of EV (electric vehicle) systems an engine that is only for generating energy.”

The LEAF, though, won’t be getting a range extender engine — it’ll reportedly be an entirely new design, with a completely different chassis than the one used in the LEAF.

Sister site Gas2 provides more:

Unlike the Chevy Volt, which has an internal combustion engine that can drive the front wheels directly in certain situations, the Nissan will have a range extender engine that is used solely to generate electricity. It will not be able to power the front wheels at all. “Next year we announce what it’s called,” Shimoida said. That’s similar to the system BMW uses for its i3 REx. Shimoida acknowledges the similarity to the BMW approach, but said his company refers to its system differently.

“It’s something like that (range extender). But we call it a series hybrid,” he says. He declined to give details about how far the new Nissan would be able to travel using a combination of battery and generator power. The BMW i3 can go about 150 miles before needing to refuel.

Could the new Nissan be based on the IDS Concept the company revealed at the Tokyo motor show last month? That car featured styling that was much more exciting than the LEAF. As good as that car is, its styling has never been its strong suit.

This is certainly an interesting development, isn’t it? As companies like GM and Tesla are working to bring long-range, affordable EVs to the market, Nissan is instead considering bringing a range-extended version to market. Hmmm.

Related:

2017 BMW i3 Range To Be 130 Miles (+ Nissan’s Response — Nissan LEAF Leak)

Exclusive Leak: 2017 & 2018 Nissan LEAFs To Have ~130 & ~150 Miles of Range