Today in China Concept Cars the 2007 Dongfeng EQ7200HEV, an early Chinese hybrid electric vehicle based on a Nissan.
In September 2007 Dongfeng released an image of a Dongfeng-Nissan Fengshen EQ7200-II Bluebird 2.0i SLA Grandeur with a Dongfeng badge on the bonnet and the designation EQ7200HEV on the license plate area.
The EQ7200HEV was based on the petrol-powered Dongfeng-Nissan Fengshen EQ7200-III sedan. But it was a Dongfeng project without any involvement by Nissan, and there were no Nissan badges on the car.
The car that was eventually unveiled in on the 5th Beijing International Energy Saving and Environmental Protection Automobile Exhibition (第五届北京国际节能环保汽车展览会) that November looked quite a bit different:
The auto show car was based on the facelifted version of the EQ7200-III, also known as the EQ7200D. But Dongfeng had made some significant changes, with an all new front with large headlights and a black grille. It also had a new style Dongfeng badge, with a triangular shape around the original logo.
This is the EQ7200D. Even though Dongfeng changed the front and all, they kept the alloy wheels!
Badge on the back: 东风混合动力, Dongfeng Hybrid.
The hybrid drive train of the Fengshen EQ7200HEV combined a gasoline engine with a permanent magnet synchronous drive motor, which was connected to an high-performance nickel-metal hydride battery.
Most interestingly, the petrol engine was not the 2.0 Nissan unit. It had been replaced by a 1.6 liter PSA engine, which was also used in the Citroen ZX Fukang which was made by the Dongfeng-PSA joint venture. Then as now, Dongfeng Motor had the luxury of having many joint ventures where it could cherry-pick combinations of platforms and engines to create their own Dongfeng-branded automobiles.
Dongfeng said that the hybrid used 30% less gasoline than the petrol version. Top speed was 160 kilometers per hour and 0-100 took a relaxed 14.5 seconds. Emissions met the Euro 3 standard, which was the ruling standard at the time in China.
At the show, Dongfeng announced that production of the EQ7200HEV would start in three years from then on, priced at 250.000 yuan. That is a unusual long timeline for an announcement at an auto show, where the horizon is normally no further than a year or so.
The actual manufacturer of the HEV was Dongfeng Electric Vehicle Corporation (DFEV)(东风电动车辆汽车股份有限公司), a subsidiary of Dongfeng Motor based in Wuhan, Hubei Province, and founded in 2001.
Like the Haima H12 EV concept we discussed earlier, the Dongfeng EQ7200HEV was born in large part thanks to a government-funded R&D program, albeit a different one. This program was called the National 863 Electric Vehicle Major Science and Technology Project (国家863电动汽车重大科技项目).
This EV research project was part of the larger 863 Program (863计划), known in English as the State High-Tech Development Plan. This was a wide-ranging government-led program to develop advanced technologies. The 863 Program started in 1983 and ended in 2016.
Several Chinese car makers joined the National 863 Electric Vehicle Major Science and Technology Project, getting government support in the process. However, the project didn’t lead to many actual production cars, but it did result in a lot of concept and prototypes.
One of the companies involved was Dongfeng. The term ‘electric vehicle’ meant more than just pure-electric cars. It also included hybrid electric vehicles (HEV) and fuel cell vehicles (FCV). Nowadays, the Chinese government uses the term ‘New Energy Vehicle’ (NEV) which still includes these three very same categories.
The Dongfeng EQ7200HEV never made it into production either but Dongfeng did a make a small series of development cars. One photo of a DFEV building shows four vehicles; the silver show car and three black examples. This story will be updated as soon as I get more info or photos.
Dongfeng developed more EV concept cars in that period. They also used their joint venture with PSA to create a fuel cell vehicle. More on that car in my next story.
Sources: Sohu, PCauto, Che, Sina, Xcar, PCauto, Emao (history Dongfeng-Nissan), Sohu (variants), XXiinews.
Many thanks to Erik for the auto show pictures!
The design of it is pretty nice, shame it didnt enter production. I never heard of this prototype before, it was an interesting read.
it basically entered production but with some modifications and was called dongfeng fengshen bluebird zhizhun. this picture of mine is very similar.
God, what did they do to that poor Nissan..
[…] specification. At the time, there was somewhat of a PHEV/HEV craze in China, with many brands launching hybrid concept […]