2021 Nissan Note review - A nearly silent Note

Singapore

BEING a compact, easy-to-handle hatchback, Nissan's new Note is the sort of car that is either going to be your very first or very last.

Or it might well be the kind you buy for a loved one, someone you care enough about to want a reliable badge like Nissan for, but not so much that you're willing to splurge on something posher. Perhaps your middle child.

Lots of cars fit that bill, but the Note has a trump card: it drives like an electric vehicle (EV). That's down to a powertrain that Nissan calls e-Power.

I'll spare you the details, but the Note gets its propulsion from a 114 horsepower motor instead of a piston engine, so it exhibits much of the character that people are increasingly flocking to EVs for.

It accelerates with seamless immediacy, and at low speeds it's so quiet that it has to beam an artificial whir at pedestrians so they know it's there.

There's even a one-pedal driving mode that turns things into a jolly game of seeing how little you can make use of the brakes, relying on energy recuperation to slow the car instead.

Like an EV, the Note e-Power has a battery to feed the motor, but it's a relatively tiny one that's roughly 30 times the capacity of the lithium-ion pack in a MacBook.

That wouldn't get you far, so the Note has a 1.2-litre petrol engine that runs a generator. In effect, like Nissan's other e-Power models, the Note is an electric car that carries its own charging station around.

When the petrol engine fires up to feed the battery, you do hear it thrumming away, but it's now much less obtrusive than in the previous Note e-Power, a car that never made it to Singapore but one that was an enormous hit in Japan.

In any case, the e-Power recipe has been a winning one for Nissan here. Such is the appeal of electric power that last year, just two other e-Power models accounted for nearly half the brand's sales in Singapore.

But I'm less certain if the Note will be as popular. The car's main flaw is that it feels like something built down to a cost.

The cabin's plastics feel cheap and hard (though they do look capable of withstanding a nuclear blast), for example, and there's no rear parcel shelf. While there are two digital screens and a touchscreen infotainment system, they all have different fonts, which makes everything look a bit cobbled-together.

Yet, the Note is packed with worthwhile safety kit, such as lane departure and collision warning, pedestrian detection and seven airbags.

It also has a fancy camera-based rear-view mirror, the touchscreen works with both Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, and the Premium version even has seats upholstered in Nappa leather, the supple stuff that some higher-end BMWs use.

None of that really hides the fact that the Note is, at its core, a basic car. It is unique in giving a proper taste of EV motoring, however.

That alone makes it a noteworthy machine.

Nissan Note e-Power Premium

Electric motor 114hp/280Nm 0-100km/h 9.0 seconds Top Speed 150km/h Fuel Efficiency 4.6L/100km Agent Tan Chong Motor Sales Price S$104,800 with COE Available Now