The new Nissan Juke Hybrid has a weirdly brilliant powertrain

Wednesday, 2 March 2022

Nissan has announced the Micra will become an all-electric hatchback sometime after 2024.

Nissan has detailed its upcoming Juke Hybrid, which is set to use a 1.6-litre petrol engine working in tandem with two electric motors.

It’s not very powerful, with the combustion engine generating 69kW and the electricals adding an extra 36kW, along with a 15kW starter-generator and a 1.2kWh battery, but it’s still a 25 per cent improvement on the combustion-only Juke.

As you might expect, it’s pretty frugal, with Nissan claiming fuel consumption reductions of up to 40 per cent in the urban cycle and 20 per cent combined. Factory claims have the CO2 emissions at 118g/km and combined consumption at 4.3L/100km, subject to homologation.

The Juke Hybrid doesn’t look much different to the ICE model, but the similarities are only skin deep.

But, it is interesting in other ways, namely its new transmission.

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The hybrid powertrain is 25 per cent more powerful than the combustion-only version.

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The electrified Juke also gets Nissan’s new logo.

It’s a low-friction automatic that uses dog clutches instead of synchroniser rings you might normally find in such a transmission, with four combustion gears and two electric gears. There’s also no clutch.

Instead, the electric motors work to synchronise the gears, delivering “a smooth, connected, and responsive acceleration.

The powertrain is also quite clever in how it switches between electric and combustion modes. It can switch through different hybridisation types possible (series, parallel, series-parallel) according to acceleration and power requirements seamlessly and without any driver input.

There is a dedicated EV button, to force the car into electric-only mode when there’s enough battery juice.

Apparently, it feels more like an EV to drive than a hybrid, helped by the car starting in electric mode every time it’s switched on. Nissan’s test drivers have also reportedly driven around 80 per cent of an urban route in electric-only mode, with the car able to drive as an EV at speeds of up to 55kmh.

The Juke Hybrid will also come with one-pedal driving, taken from the Leaf EV. Nissan also assures us that weird-feeling brakes in hybrids are a thing of the past, with its new ‘Regenerative Cooperative Brake’ function, which “blends regenerative braking and traditional friction braking to achieve a natural pedal feeling and efficient energy recovery.”

Other changes in the Juke Hybrid include Nissan’s new logo on the mesh front grille, ‘Hybrid’ badging on the front doors and tailgate, new wheels, and a handful of design tweaks to improve aerodynamic efficiency.

Inside, one of the dials behind the steering wheel now shows a power gauge, with the needle moving between Charge, Eco and Power readouts, and an energy readout in the centre display. There are a few other hybrid/EV-specific tweaks in the cabin as well.

The Juke Hybrid will launch later this year overseas, with a New Zealand launch yet to be confirmed. It’s pretty likely to land here, though.