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While it look more like a facelift of the 5th gen Serena (C27), this actually a brand new model from Nissan, and it is now available in 3 drive train options: petrol only, petrol hybrid and ePower (EV). The gasoline version uses a 2.0-liter naturally aspirated engine with 150 horsepower (110 kilowatts) and 200 Newton-meters of torque offered with or without all-wheel drive and a CVT. There's also a hybrid e-Power model (2WD only) with a new and quieter 1.4-liter engine producing 98 hp (72 kW) and 123 Nm. Combined with the electric motor, the total system output is 163 hp (120 kW) and 315 Nm.

2018 Nissan Serena e-POWER Nissan New Serena e-POWER Transmission The new Serena e-POWER does not have a transmission. It is 100% electric motor drive, and smooth acceleration starts from the moment you step on the pedal. In addition, the new Serena e-POWER is equipped with "e-POWER Drive" which can control the acceleration / deceleration at will by operation only with the accelerator pedal, and it is greatly helping to reduce the burden on the driver. Source: http://car-moby.jp

Any Nissan Serena owners here? Can't find any reviews locally and don't think I've seen any on our roads though I think a few of this has already been delivered to their new owners. There's 2 versions. The Comfort version is more affordable with manual sliding doors and original fabric seats. The Highway Star version comes with body kit, power sliding doors and locally fitted leather seats. Interesting flexible seat configurations between 7-8 seaters. So far no other locally available MPV has it according to my knowledge. However, the center seat in the second row may not be comfortable. This is the Highway Star version

I finally realized that fatherhood had taken over my life. It’s the cycle of life that I thought I’ll never be in. Happy being a Bachelor for more then 40 years till I met my wife. I thought , sure, we can still survive with a Coupé . Then came baby 1 and we changed to a five door hatchback ( Have your tried putting a baby in the back seat of a Coupé, I’ll spent more $ after to see the chiropractor for my back). But when baby 2 came along, suddenly with two child seats at the back , there is no room left to put anyone else, the maid can’t even fit in between. There are days when we have to go out with the elders. (luckily we only have two of them in singapore). Don’t know where to fit if there are all 4 and 2 kids and my wife and me. I need a V class Mercedes or a Toyota HiAce van for that. I know many people will say “Hey, we can manage to squeeze up to 8 in a SUV or MPV”. They can sit on laps and the adults can sit “one in one out” seating positions. First it’s so uncomfortable, after even a 30mins drive . As an adult, I can’t seem to feel my legs if I’m in the middle or 3rd row after the squeeze. Good luck trying to ask two 80 year olds to do that, you will never hear the end of it. Secondly, legally you are only supposed to have the right amount of people per seat belt. So our quest was simple, or so we thought… My wife and my needs were simple. 1) Safety first for the kids. (Who cares about looks😂 that is when Parenthood hits) 2) Comfort for everyone in the car. 3) Have enough booth space at the back to at least put 1 stroller with all rows of seats up. 4) Reasonable size and height that can go into most car parks and easy to drive. ( if it’s huge, I’m sure someone will ding the car on the first day of driving it) 5) As cheap as possible with all those needs. well, this is abit of an option point. Good to have , but with COE at this price, it’s a tall order. Our little adventure started one sunny Monday morning. We have mondays off (lucky us)😝. We visited, I can’t remember how and dealership and Parallel importers, second hand car dealers too. To make it short, We did not see the Rolls-Royce , Ferrari, Lamborghini, Bentley , Porsche,Aston Martin ,etc… So after seeing a lot of brands. I can tell you we learned a lot. As our priority was safety first for the kids. They are at 7 months and 2.5 years old of me writing this . They both need a properly child care seats . The youngest one needs a back facing type as he has not fully developed his core and neck muscles to fit front facing child seats. So we needed seats that have Isofix features, ( I’m not going back to the dark ages especially when it comes to the safety of our kids) if you know, most 7-8 seats have 3 rows of seats. And there are two types of configurations. The ones with the opening in the middle of the 2nd row ( eg: Toyota Alphard) and the ones without the opening. And if you decide to choose the ones which have middle opening to walk to the 3rd row. The easy part is that you don’t really need to move anything or seats, You just open the doors and the walk into the car and go to the back from the middle aisle. It’s not very wide, but an adult can squeeze through. Here comes the question. Generally , the most comfortable and expensive seats are the 2nds rows, with the leg and arm rest and some even comes with massage options. Good points to score points with the elderly on the massage options. But no, most car makers don’t think this way, they don’t have isofix at the 3rd rows and they want you to put your kids in the 2nd row after you spend buckets loads of $ on those prized seats. How is my child going to enjoy the massage or leg rest when the child seat is a buffer between them. And I rather score points with my mother in law then make her climb into the 3rd row back seats😅. If you chose the other configuration without the middle opening at the 2nd row seats. You won’t be an able to get to the 3rd rows with two child seats fixed into the 2nd row seats. Maybe some cars can , but the gap is so small when you can’t fold the seats down to access the 3rd row seats. Only a few cars made it to our list because of the isofix at the 3rd row seats. Sad to say the popular Toyota Alphard didn’t made it , they don’t Isofix at the 3rd row, even the Volvo XC90 ( known for its safety features) doesn’t come with it at the 3rd rows, all Japanese brands don’t have it at all. and some other continental brands too, like Mercedes MLB20, BMW 218GT, Citroen, Peugeot, Alfa, Fiat, Skoda and Korean brand Hyundai and Chinese BYD M3e both didn’t have IsoFix at the 3rd row too. Audi and Renault didn’t have anything in their show room at Leng Kee as of now. If you are still with me after my long rant, here is our list of cars that made it. 😂. Kia Carnival Opel Zafira E Life Seat Alhambra Volkswagen Sharan (The VW Touran didn’t make it as it has no booth space for my stroller after all 7 seats are up) With every list there can finally only be one left. How we came to the one was pretty easy. Kia carnival is huge at 5115mm long. Parking it is going to be a challenge at older carparks and I’m sure one of us will ding it. Also the engine is a diesel 2.2L and our government tax on diesel is not something we want to consider. Next off the list was the Opel Zafira E Life. With a range of only 230 km range after a electric charge, going up north for a family holiday is going to be a challenge. The two horse ( Alhambra and Sharan) race to the last comes built from the same factory in Portugal, and they are under the umbrella of Volkswagen Group. Volkswagen “The people’s car “ in the English and kudos to them for designing this for the normal people in mind, it is the perfect made for the family like mine, two or more young kids with elder parents. They have integrated child seats for those with kids from 3-12. Saves you spending more money for buying boaster seats for the older kids or when your young kids gets older. Have enough space to put the stroller at the back with all 7 seats up. Not as easy to get to the 3rd row back seats as the ones with middle aisle configuration. But it’s not hard either to get to the back with its sliding door and reasonable gap ( I’m 1.78m and I could climb in with easy). Yea I have two kids, and “IF” (please note on the word “IF”) I decide placed both the kids in the 2nd middle row, just to take the piss out of my in-laws…😅 I can put one in the middle and one to the side of the 2nd row (because they are all 3 individual seats in the 2nd row and they all have Isofix on them), while the rest of the adults can still go to the back from the other side. If when my wife is willing to give us another bundle of joy or the agent of Chaos depending on the kids mood. But she said, her factory is close. it really spacious in the middle row, I can have three adults sitting side by side without feeling squeezed not like my BMW 216AT back row seats. But I would like my elders to be comfortable, so putting the youngest in the middle seat on the 2nd row and having two elderly flanking that child and have my helper at the back with the older child works best for us. But there can only one car “to rule them all”. we went with the Sharan based on the badge the power of the engine. Well first it’s a VW, and I was told that the whole singapore market for Seat’s last years new car sales was less then 100 units, somehow no one’s wants a Seat, I’m not sure if this report is true, but yes I don’t see a lot of Seats on the road compared to VW. So resale for the Seat is not ideal. The Engine for the Seat Alhambra is a 1.4 and the VW Sharan a 2.0, they are both turbocharged and power is more then 110kw and hence they fall into category “B” for the COE. The Sharan has all the extras and nicer interior, like the sun roof, yes it’s nice to have but not a need. The difference with its current discount on both cars in $ was not significant large. (Out goes point 5 on our list) But in return was neutralized by the better resale value and VW brand, but the one that closed the deal for me was being able to have the same engine (EA888) as the Golf GTI with a 7.8 seconds to 100km, making my dreams of me going back to being the young bachelor I was at heart. 😎 Even though my wife thinks I’m already an old uncle in my late 40’s 😆. I still want to put the windows down , have the sun roof opened and blast my music from Gold 90.5 (boomer station) and feel the wind in my face while I hand surf with my arms hanging out the door ledge. Hey , you are never to old to still be an young Ah Beng at heart. Your sincerely, Ctaiwee

Am looking for some advice: We're going to Hokkaido next month, and are looking at renting a large MPV, so hope to get some tips and information on: 1) which MPV is good/best 2) any tips on driving in winter There will be 7 of us on the trip. 6 adults/children who are 1.7-1.8 m tall, and one 6-yo kid who needs a booster seat. There will also be quite a bit of luggage, tentatively 1-2 pcs 28", 3 pcs 24", 2 pcs 20" luggages. Looking at the options for MPVs, the larger ones are either Toyota Alphard or Nissan Elgrand, followed by the slightly smaller ones of Toyota Noah or Nissan Serena. Any bigger will be the Toyota Hiace van. Is there any possibility of accommodating all 7, plus the luggages in Alphard/Elgrand, or is it necessary to go for Hiace? I vaguely remember that @Heartlander had mentioned before renting Elgrand during a Japan trip, and also owned an Alphard before here? Care to share your experience please? Anyone else with knowledge/experience of these 2 - your opinion is welcome. If we shift the 3 rows of seats to be more 'forward', will the luggage/boot space behind 3rd row seat, be sufficient for the luggages that we have? Then on #2, driving in winter/snow, apart from going slow, and avoiding icy roads, what else should we look out for? Winter tyres are standard, and there's 4WD option for the vehicles. Thanks in advance.

I have little doubt that electric cars are soon going to be the future. But since the charging infrastructure here still leaves much to be desired, fans of automotive amperes have had to resort to hybrid propulsion. Nissan however, reckons that we need not compromise and gave us a taste of that instantaneous torque so analogous with electric cars last week with the Nissan Serena e-POWER. The eagle-eyed among you will note (haha get it?) that the car has some strange numbers: A 1.2-litre unit seems hardly sufficient for a seven-seater, and is that 134bhp really generated at a whopping 9867rpm? Rest assured that those are not typos. The Serena e-POWER is a hybrid in the sense that you fill up at the pumps and yet electricity is somehow involved, but that piccolo unit under the bonnet is not mechanically connected to the driving wheels, well, not directly, anyway. Nissan's e-POWER technology instead uses that petrol engine to power a generator which in turn, feeds current into a battery or electric motor in order to drive an electric motor, so you can see why we are dealing with very unusual numbers. But doesn't it sound like a just a hybrid car with more steps? You might be tempted to conclude at this point that all those additional processes must lead to some energy loss, and you are right. But as it turns out, so is operating a petrol engine through a conventional gearbox and having it run through vastly different engine speeds. The gains made from separating the petrol engine from the rest of the drivetrain are actually enough to make up for the complication of it all. But does it work well enough? We know it should. It is technology that has actually been in use for years in heavier vehicles, in things like freight trains and mining trucks - precisely where your fuel bill will hit like a, er, truck - and a full day of fooling around in the car, starting and stopping for photos and so on returned me a 15.2km/L fuel consumption rate. Which is reasonable in my opinion, for a 1,700kg car. But here's the thing though: If you are looking for an MPV, buy this, not because it's great with fuel, but because it has all the qualities of a good people carrier, with little of the typical drawbacks. It has a practical interior, and its weight is well masked under all that electric torque. But the best part is driving the thing: Its smooth acceleration, the lovely chairs, as well as the knowledge that you are moving along so much metal made me feel like Captain of the Starship Enterprise. Check that everyone is belted up and engage warp drive! Now imagine what lovely consolation that is to having to ferry your kids around on your daily drive. Looks like our electric future is approaching faster than we think.

New Nissan Serena 2017..impressive, will definitely give the current MPVs a run for their money. Hopefully Tan Chong can bring it in....https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ba8ixpz9-LA

All new 2017 Nissan Serena 5th Generation Nissan’s new Serena ProPILOT Technology Makes Autonomous Drive First for Japanese Automakers. To be released in late August. For power, the Serena soldiers on with the S-Hybrid powertrain from its predecessor, which in this case, involves a MR20DD 2.0 litre direct-injected twin-CVTC four-cylinder petrol engine that develops 147 PS at 5,600 rpm, while torque output is 210 Nm at 4,400 rpm. The mill is mated mated to an Xtronic CVT, and is supplemented by an ECO motor that controls the car’s Idling Stop function and serves as an alternator during deceleration. The 1.8 kW/200 A motor also allows for a “torque assist” function, providing a 50 Nm boost for up to one second when moving away from a standstill. Center console Sources: http://japanese.engadget.com/2016/07/13/serena/ http://paultan.org/2016/07/13/all-new-nissan-serena-fifth-generation-model-debuts/