Competitors will shake at LEAF range

THE Nissan LEAF has always been a car that divides opinion.

Some love this fully-electric vehicle for its bold engineering and surprisingly-enjoyable driving dynamics but, to date, many other green-minded potential buyers have struggled to make a case for it.

That could change thanks to the improvements made to this second generation model, which offers a further big enhancement in driving range.

The Nissan LEAF is the world’s best-selling electric vehicle. You might think that would equate to sales in their tens of millions. Actually, the truth is following its launch back in 2010 and throughout a production life that lasted nearly eight years, the first generation version of this battery-powered Nissan shifted just 283,000 units — worldwide.

That says more about the slow global take-up of battery-powered cars, which continues to lag behind industry predictions.

Mostly, that’s been because of the restrictions plug-in-only vehicles put on driving range, though that’s something that’s changing as the automotive electric technology improves.

The first generation LEAF model back in 2010 struggled to get much more than 60-70 miles out of it between charges.

With this second generation design, Nissan claims a homologated driving range of 235 miles from the standard model — and there’ll be a further “e-plus” version to follow with an even more powerful battery that claims 310 miles between charges. Even if you think in terms of a real-world driving range being about two-thirds of those figures, you can’t deny it represent a huge improvement — 50% increase over the final version of the previous model.

Helping here is the larger 40kWh lithium-ion battery you get this time around. It produces 110kW (148bhp), which significantly improves on the previous model’s figures of 80kW. That means pulling power’s up, too — a rise to 320Nm — making the LEAF feel even faster from a standing start: Nissan say that the 0-62mph time has been improved by 15%, which should translate into a sprint time of about 9.8s.

Quite a number of 50kW charging points are springing up in our cities and you’ll be able to regularly recharge your LEAF from empty to 80% capacity in just 40 minutes.

Charging at home is still best done overnight, though.

Expect to pay £25,000 to £30,000 for the new LEAF.