Nissan Leaf
WE SAY: AT LAST! A LEAF FOR LONG JOURNEYS
“Everyone I know with an M3 says…”, “I’ve got a couple of mates with 911 GT3s and they both…” Such are the snippets you overhear when surrounded by motoring writers. Small wonder the Nissan Leaf is so widely misunderstood by the car press. I don’t move in those social circles, but I do have a couple of good friends with secondhand Nissan Leafs.
They love them. Fulminations of the metropolitan lentil-hugging classes? Nope. They live on the outer edges of small villages a long way from any metropolis.
Nissan shifted nearly 300,000 original Leafs to super-satisfed owners. There’d have been more converts if it had been capable of going further on a charge. More acceleration was wanted. Looking less of a runt wouldn’t have done it any harm, either. So those matters have been attended to. Modern high-level driver assistance is an added option.
A 40kWh battery and better aero stretch the range to 168 miles on the new WLTP test. Long-distance trips are more feasible anyway, since Leaf-compatible quick chargers are now widespread, giving fat-to-135 miles in 40 minutes. People mostly charge at home, though. Imagine how handy it’d be if your petrol car had half a tank every single morning.
The cabin is now more conventional, with an actual speedo. Phone mirroring too. Ride and handling are hatch-normal. It doesn’t roll much, bobs a bit, and steers accurately but numbly. What makes this more than a dreary rational purchase is the propulsion: near-silent, seamless, instant. A new e-Pedal accelerator mode blends in strong regeneration with the brakes when you lift. It mostly avoids activating the energy-wasting discs; if your anticipation is good you never use the brake pedal.
Nissan is now in the home-energy storage business so will buy batteries back when the car itself is scrapped, doing wonders for residuals. Next year a bigbattery Leaf will add 50-odd miles, still at way sub-Tesla prices. But mention of the Model 3 or the Chevy Bolt shows that this Leaf may be too cautious. Then in 2020 comes the VW ID. But none of them are here yet. The Leaf may not be a revolution, but it is here, now.