Nissan Leaf

MONTH 3 By Jake Groves

LET’S TALK ABOUT the Leaf’s boot. It measures 435 litres, which is bigger than the likes of the Renault Zoe, VW e-Golf and Kia Soul EV. There are quite a few compromises to get that space, though; while there are handy bags for your charging cables and little nets to slot the bags in at the sides, the actual opening is really weirdly shaped – almost like a teardrop. My colleague James Taylor, who borrowed the Leaf to drive to a guitar lesson, had a struggle getting his instrument to squeeze in, battling the pincer movement of the high load lip, the big Bose audio unit screwed to the boot ‘loor and rear seatbacks that don’t quite fold ‘lat. I appreciate

nd that making an EV comes with compromises, but when one is built from the ground up like our Nissan, surely practicality niggles should be few and far between?

LOGBOOK NISSAN LEAF TEKNA

Price £28,390* As tested £30,055 (*including £2500 plug-in car grant) Engine 40kWh battery, single e-motor, 148bhp @ 3283rpm, 236lb ft Transmission Single-speed auto, front-wheel drive Performance 7.9sec 0¤62mph, 90mph, 0g/km CO2 Miles this

month 535 Total 4167 Energy consumption

370Wh/mile Fuel this month £24.97

There’s a place for left ield thinking in car design. The boot is not that place. Are we all clear on that?