The best ways to explain any technology are the simplest ones. When people understand the direct benefits they offer, they are able to fully appreciate them. Check Nissan’s e-4ORCE system. It will control back-and-forth body sway starting with the Ariya, but people will love it a lot more if they see it delivering noodles without dropping sauce around.
Nissan’s genius move demanded the company to create a motorized server tray with the technology. We have no idea how much money and time doing that required. However, the first video below shows the results of this effort.
In a typical Japanese restaurant, the chef places the noodle bowl over the motorized tray, and it accelerates to reach the customer. Then, it suddenly reduces speed. Not a single drop of sauce spills out in either of these accelerating and decelerating moments.
Nissan announced the e-4ORCE system almost two years ago, on July 15, 2020. Months later, on November 29, 2021, it released another video on YouTube to show the system's advantages. You can also watch it below.
As competent as the video is in presenting what the traction system can do for the electric SUV and its occupants, you probably have not heard about it as much as you will with the noodles bowl. Again, that’s the genius of simple and direct messages we talked about at the beginning of this text.
If you think that e-4ORCE is an elaborate acronym with an incredibly detailed meaning, it is much simpler than you thought. You read 4ORCE as “force,” so it is simply “e-force,” whatever that means. We do not believe it has any connection with the Star Wars saga.
Although the name may stick to people’s heads (especially after this noodles movie), it does not do justice to the body control it performs. Dealing with the brakes and the electric motors in each of the Ariya’s axles, e-4ORCE also keeps the electric SUV in the desired trajectory, which makes cars equipped with it not only more comfortable but also safer.
The sad bit is that only the AWD Ariya will offer the traction control system for obvious reasons. Those cars equipped with it will have four driving modes instead of only three. Regular Ariya units drive in Standard, Sport, and ECO, while those with e-4ORCE add a Snow mode to the options.
Another advantage presented by the traction control system is that the rear motor can also help with regenerative braking. Those without it can only count on the front motor to recover energy. In other words, Nissan will not offer the e-4ORCE system in all AWD versions.
From what we have seen so far, only the version with the larger battery pack – 87 kWh of usable capacity, 90 kWh in total – will offer it. We have no idea if the 63-kWh (65 kWh in total) AWD Ariya will have it as an optional. After the noodle demonstration, some customers will undoubtedly ask for that possibility. If a motorized server tray can have it, why not the most affordable Ariya, right?
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