Nissan 400Z to electrify

If you thought the Nissan 400Z would only be offered with a Toyota Supra-bashing twin-turbo petrol V6, think again.

Nissan’s vice-president of global product strategy, Ivan Espinosa, told carsales the Japanese car-maker will deploy hybrid powertrains for its sports cars soon.

When quizzed about electrification options for the upcoming Nissan 400Z, he said: “Well, I cannot give you details about the car now.”

However, he added: “What I can tell you is I still see space for two different things.

“Probably in the short term you can still see a bit more conventional technology coming. By conventional I mean maybe still ICE [internal combustion engine] driven, maybe with some electrification on the sports cars,” said Nissans product strategy boss, suggesting the 400Z will get a hybrid boost.

Expected to be revealed in 2021, the new Nissan 400Z will pack a twin-turbo 3.0-litre V6 (VR30DDTT) punch, belting out Toyota Supra-rivalling outputs of around 298kW/475Nm.

The forced-induction V6 should allow the Z-car’s 0-100km/h sprint to dip under five seconds, but the instant low-end torque provided by a hybrid petrol/electric boost could see acceleration improve further.

It’s not yet clear what form a hybrid powertrain for the Nissan 400Z could take, nor when the sports car will get its high-tech powertrain, but a mild-hybrid set-up common in modern European cars is a possibility.

Nissan’s current hybrid heroes are branded e-POWER and utilise EV-like power delivery, whereby the petrol engines are merely generators and have no connection with driving wheels.

However, Espinosa made no mention of e-POWER and hinted that something different could be on the cards.

Whatever hybrid solution is chosen for the 400Z, Nissan could have the market all to itself with an affordable electrified sports car.

Toyota has declared it will sell hybrid versions of every single model in its range by 2025. But the fact the Supra was engineered by BMW and shares its mechanicals with the Z4, a hybrid version of which is apparently not in the pipeline, has led to reports the Supra will be killed off before 2025.

While there’s no concrete timeline for a high-performance hybrid powertrain from Nissan, the company’s product strategy chief noted that we’ll see a staged build-up to electrified sports cars.

“You’d have probably two steps in the early stages or the coming years,” said Espinosa.

“But we still see space for a bit more innovation in the ICE field and in the mid/long term you could start hearing from Nissan maybe exploring on the sports cars with electrification.”

That strategy includes the top-shelf Nissan GT-R, the chief engineer of which told carsales last year that a decision between hybrid and all-electric power was yet to be made for the next-generation R36.

Toyota Supra v Nissan 400Z