There was plenty to like about the old Nissan Leaf, it had a driving range of
155 miles, a smart interior and offered the kind of low
running cost which electric car buyers are looking for. Towards the end of its
life though is beginning to look a bit, well, outclassed by more modern rivals
such as the Renault Zoe or Volkswagen e-Golf and that is why there's this the
all-new Nissan Leaf with a greater driving range and a bigger focus on
safety than before, the new leaf could, on paper at least, walk away with class
honors here but does it convince you to buy an electric car and how well does it
compare to its key rivals? That's the question we'll answer in this review
along with how practical it is what it's like inside and what it's like to live
with and remember if at the end of it all you're interested in buying a new
car including the Nissan Leaf here then just go to what car.com and click on our
new car deal section to see how much we can save you. It could potentially be
thousands. First though, let's take this new Nissan Leaf out for a drive.
Now unlike in most cars, lifting off the accelerator in an electric car like the
Nissan Leaf causes it to slow down and that's the cars regenerative brakes at
work harvesting extra energy from braking to feed back into the battery
and help you go further. Now in the leaf and in most other electric cars you also
have an extra mode called bee mode which exacerbates that effects and cause you
to slow down even faster but the leaf goes one step further because if I put
the car into its so called a e-Pedal mode then as you can tell when I take my foot
off the accelerator there the whole car starts to slow down to the point where I
could effectively drive it using only one foot. Now this leaf is no slouch it
will reach 60 miles an hour in 8.2 seconds which is faster than both of its
key rivals and it will keep going on to a limited top speed of 89 miles per hour.
The big question though is range, that's the thing electric car buyers are
looking for, how far you can go between charges and in the leaf that's an
official 235 miles, a word of warning though because the tests which decide
that official range are wholly unrepresentative of real-world driving
so you're not likely to get anywhere close to that in the
real world. In fact when we tested the leaf at around 5 degrees Celsius the
kind of temperature you're likely to find in winter in the UK, we got a range
of a hundred and eight miles then that's more than the Volkswagen e-Golf but less
than a Renault Zoe like with most electric cars if you put your foot down
you do get an instant surge of power and the leaf feels a little akin to a hot
hatch in that respect. It stays slightly more upright than both of its key rivals
through corners and has a slightly firmer ride around town too.
The interior of this Nissan Leaf is fundamentally a big improvement over that of the old car
but this driving position is a bit flawed you sit nice and high up but the
fact that there's no reach adjustment in this steering wheel means that you're
likely going to sit with it either too far away from you or pull too close to
it and that can hamper your comfort on longer trips. At least you get a good
view out of the front of the car making it easy to see where you're going to
park however if you want to look over your shoulder to the rear the cars
heavily stylized back end can make viewing difficult fortunately though you
get front and rear parking sensors and even a reversing camera to help.
This 7-inch touchscreen infotainment system comes a standard on every leaf and it is
loaded with features, you get DAB digital radio, sat-nav, Bluetooth and USB
connectivity and Apple Carplay and Android Auto and that means you can
control most of the features of your smartphone using the cars interface. It's
mostly easy to use - thanks to these logical menus and big icons and you can
use these shortcut buttons on either side too. Less impressive is how low
resolution this screen is it's really not as sharp as what you'll find in
something like a Volkswagen e-Golf. Interior space is where the Nissan Leaf
starts to gain an advantage over the rival Renault Zoe because it is
significantly larger inside and that's most evident here in the front where
you've got space to stretch out and there's also plenty of space for your
odds and ends. These door bins will easily take a medium-sized water bottle
there's a cubby here for your mobile phone, a large central storage area here
under the central armrest and of course a glove box as well.
Move to these rear seats and the leaf is similarly spacious and two six-footers
can sit one behind the other and still have enough room. It's a different story
when it comes to headroom though because as you can see my head is pretty much
touching the roof of this Leaf, there's less than what you'll find in a
Volkswagen e-Golf and as is usually the case here try and fit three people on
this rear bench and everyone will feel the pinch, not least because this middle
passenger has to straddle this tunnel in the floor. There's more space in the boot
of the Nissan Leaf than what you'll find in either a Renault Zoe or Volkswagen
e-Golf so loading a couple of large holiday suitcases or a large weekly shop
should present no trouble. There's no height adjustable boot floor on offer though,
so you're going to have to contend with this rather significant load lip
when heaving items over. You can at least extend this load bay if you need to
using toggles on the back of the seats and that folds them forwards and gives
you a larger area if you need to move some furniture or some DIY. The leaf
along with its key rivals from Renault and Volkswagen qualifies for the lowest
band of company car tax so it makes a good deal of sense for company car
drivers at the moment. It's worth remembering though that if you buy
privately on a PCP finance deal, as most buyers will, you'll need to spend a lot
of time in the leaf and do a lot of miles before it starts to save you real
money. It's also worth noting that charging an electric car is vastly
cheaper than paying for petrol or diesel and charging the leaf here takes eight
hours through a standard 7 kilowatts home charging units or just 40 minutes using
the kind of fast charging equipment you're likely to find at a motorway
service station. You do get plenty of kits here in the leaf especially if you
go for one of our recommended N-connector models which come with 17-inch
alloy wheels, heated seats, front and rear parking sensors, climate control and even
keyless entry. You also get automatic emergency braking and six airbags.
This leaf is one of the best electric cars around, it offers excellent performance a
big boot and plenty of kit, in fact we'd go as far to say that it's one of the most
tempting propositions for electric motoring we've found. Now for plenty more
on the new Nissan Leaf including our full 16 point review head to What Car.com
where you'll also find our new car deal section and if you click on
that you can see how much we can save you on your next car, the link to that is
in the description box below but remember before you do anything else
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