Nissan drives new Qashqai length of UK on single tank of petrol

Nissan has driven a Qashqai fitted with its new e-Power hybrid powertrain the length of the UK – from Land’s End to John O’Groats – on a single tank of fuel.

The powertrain, which was recently updated to improve its efficiency and refinement, yielded 75mpg in the hands of Nissan engineers while completing the 837-mile drive.

That marked an improvement on the result achieved by Nissan on the same journey in 2007, when a 1.5-litre diesel-engined Qashqai clocked 67mpg.

According to Nissan, the e-Power car's trip took 18 hours (over two days) and the car reached John O’Groats with enough petrol left in its tank to drive a further 100 miles.

The e-Power system behaves differently to most conventional hybrid powertrains: the turbocharged 1.5-litre petrol engine doesn't drive the wheels at all, instead generating electricity for a small 1.8kWh battery which in turn powers an electric motor. The motor is the car's sole driving force, putting out 201bhp and 243lb ft of torque.

Earlier this year, the system was upgraded to a new ‘five-in-one’ construction, integrating the motor, generator, inverter, increaser and reducer into one package. As well as being smaller, this also improves responsiveness, Nissan claimed. 

The test result of 75mpg marks a considerable improvement over the system’s official economy figure of 62.8mpg. However, Nissan hasn't published an average speed or detailed its driving style for the trip. Slow, gentle driving can net much greater economy than is reflected by official laboratory tests.