Nissan’s luxury Fuga hybrid, the company’s first petrol-electric vehicle to use its own technology, goes on sale next week in Japan priced from Y5.78m (US$71,500). Toyota’s Prius costs Y2.05m.
Nissan said in a statement that the Fuga – also sold as the Infiniti M in other markets – will return 54mpg on the Japanese highway test system. This compares with the Prius’s claimed 108mpg on the same cycle.
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Nissan’s hybrid system uses a lithium-ion battery supplied by Automotive Energy Supply, a joint venture between Nissan and NEC that also makes the battery for the Leaf EV, production of which started this week at Nissan’s Oppama plant.
Nissan’s only other passenger-car hybrid model is the Altima, which uses Toyota’s hybrid system.
Meanwhile, Nissan CEO Carlos Ghosn has confirmed that the company has received more than 23,000 pre-orders for its Leaf EV which will sell for US$32,780 in the U.S. and 3.76m yen in Japan. The Leaf goes on sale in December and Mr Ghosn said he aims to have capacity to build 500,000 electric cars a year by 2012.
