Nissan Motor Co.'s Fuga Hybrid, a luxury sedan hitting the market next week, uses a lithium ion battery instead of the nickel-metal hydride batteries found in hybrids from Toyota Motor Corp. and Honda Motor Co.
Size for size, lithium ion batteries offer roughly double the power output of nickel-metal hydride batteries, helping to make hybrid and electric vehicles smaller and lighter. But high costs have kept lithium ion batteries out of hybrids so far, except for a handful of models from such luxury car makers as Daimler AG and BMW AG.
- The hybrid system used in the Fuga Hybrid.
Nissan has teamed up with NEC Corp. in development and production of lithium ion batteries for hybrids and EVs. Together, they plan to raise their output capacity for these batteries to 500,000 units a year as early as fiscal 2012.
Lithium ion batteries will also power the automaker's Leaf all-electric car, due out this December. Nissan will thus likely be able to lower costs through economies of scale, helping it boost the popularity of its hybrids and EVs.
Equipped with a 3.5-liter gasoline engine, the Fuga Hybrid gets 19km per liter -- 90% better than the 3.7-liter gasoline-only Fuga and beating the hybrid version of Toyota's Crown luxury vehicle by 58%.
The Fuga Hybrid's high fuel efficiency is also owed to Nissan's proprietary hybrid system. By enabling the electric motor to take the vehicle up to around 80kph when the accelerator pedal is held down, the system has widened the range of speeds at which only the motor is needed, cutting down on gasoline use.
No comments:
Post a Comment