Nissan Motor Co. is creating new modular powertrains to streamline production and reduce hybrid car manufacturing costs by up to 30%.
Senior Vice President Toshihiro Hirai stated at a briefing on Tuesday that the Yokohama-based automaker anticipates being able to bring down the price of its hybrid cars to the same level as gasoline-powered cars by 2026.
Nissan unveiled designs for two new engines: one for its ‘E-power‘ hybrid vehicles and the other for its zero-emission cars. Both employ comparable technology, which will aid in production consolidation and localization. Nissan touched on this topic late last month when outlining its accelerated electrification strategy.
Japanese automakers, notably Toyota Motor Corp., claim they’re taking a more nuanced approach and continuing to invest heavily in hybrids while the automotive industry as a whole rushes headlong into electric vehicles.
They think that consumers won’t want to switch to electric cars right away and will instead want to wait for the technology to advance and the price of EVs to decrease. Concerns exist regarding the availability of adequate EV charging infrastructure.
About 52% of Nissan’s total sales in Japan during the second quarter of fiscal 2022 were made up of pure electric and hybrid vehicles. Even though hybrids made up the majority of that, it’s an improvement from the 12% in 2016. According to Hirai, Nissan’s new engines could enter production as early as 2024.
Hirai added that the missing component for EVs is still a set of dependable, functional batteries that don’t cost a fortune to make or require diminishing supplies of rare Earth metals. Nissan is dedicated to creating the next generation of solid-state batteries, he continued. He claimed that the introduction of solid-state batteries was crucial.
