The best EV nobody expected? Nissan Ariya electric SUV review (inc range, 0-100)

Up until this point, electric cars seem to have succeeded. Despite their looks, instead of because of them designers seem to think it was important to make them look funky, so theyd look at them and go wow that guy bought an ev instead of just making them a beautiful car. Now nissan has been as guilty of that. As anyone, but they have turned over a new leaf in the shape of this, the new and very beautiful aria Music. Just look at that sexy face. It could really succeed. In hollywood im getting judds dreads helmet im, getting bits of blade, runner im getting steampunk. Overall, though, what im getting is a concept car thats, somehow driven onto the road, its fantastic and its distinctly japanese nissan call it timeless japanese futurism and the good news is its just as cool inside Music. So the aria is a crossover, suv and its almost the size of a qashqai, but it feels much bigger inside thanks to the flat floor and the fact that nissan managed to move the air conditioning system forward under the bonnet to give even more space. Its also got lots of cool features like this, which is called the powered central storage unit or what they call the magic box. Its also got lovely timber finishes its got these haptic buttons, which are hard to explain what they feel like other than just to show. You the joy on my face when i press them.

Ah lovely and weve got two 12 inch screens and theyre interactive. So i can flick like this and switch the sat nav from one screen to the other. Then youve got this. The big central console, which i can move forward and back and if i move it far enough forward, it makes more space for someone back there. So, with that powered center console shifted forward theres room here in the middle seat for an almost full sized adult to sit, and if i move over and sit behind my driving position, look how much space ive got the flat floor. Ive got loads of knee room. Its a limousine style back here, the nissan aria – has a 466 litre boot, which puts it below the nissan qashqai, which boasts a volume of 504 liters. The interior also features neat kumiko design touches. Kumiko is a form of japanese craftsmanship that involves sticking pieces of wood together without nails. It sounds very clever and its an old world touch in a very new world car. The arias approach to technology represents the japanese concept of ki ki, which means cutting edge and chic yet subtle at the same time, which is very japanese, it includes features like an intelligent, rear view, mirror, which is basically a camera projected onto your rear view, mirror the Aria also offers an amazon alexa connection, so you can ask your car to turn on the lights or the heating at your house before you get home and theres an intelligent route planner which not only directs you to your destination but works out where youll need to Recharge to get there, it checks the status of those charges and will reroute you if theyre busy to optimize travel time Music, so heres a little driving tip for you, dont try and do it in sweden, which is where nissan chose for some reason to launch the Aria, sweden is exactly what youd expect from a country that brought you volvo.

It makes melbourne, look like monza the fastest speed limit, ive seen all day was 70, and that was on a three lane wide freeway. So i cant tell you what the aria is like at 110 kilometers an hour, because if i did that in sweden id be shot or probably stabbed by a viking, so its a challenging environment, they also love speed cameras, theres one roughly, every 500 meters still ive Had a lot of time to appreciate the ambience and the quiet interior of the aria – and it really is something they worked very hard on nvh, they wont tell us exactly who they benchmarked against, but its definitely premium and quite possibly, german. Everything about the aria is smooth. I like the ride. I, like the steering its got almost a perfect 50 50 weight balance, so the handling is very good and they made a very quick steering ratio which they said was based on research around the leaf people. Didnt like how light it was. They wanted something a bit firmer and that makes it really handle quite well as well and its quite involving to drive so all in all its a fairly pleasant driving experience as long as youre, not in sweden, so doing about the average speed in sweden. Ive been looking for a nice bit of road now for about three hours in which time weve covered about 30 kilometers. They do love a tunnel in sweden as well somewhere to sit and uh reflect on how boring driving here is.

What i have noticed in that time is the seats are uh reasonable, but actually the the back seats a bit firm. I really like the steering wheel, which has a flat bottom like an f1 car, and i really like the way the car accelerates uh. But i cant remember what that feels like. But if i find another bit of road thats uh faster than 40 kilometers an hour ill, let you know so exciting news im on a freeway theres, open space in front of me, im doing 70 kilometers now, which is the limit. But i want to talk about the acceleration of the car and uh. You can feel that here between 40 and 70 kilometers an hour, and it does have that kind of typical ev thrust, which is very nice, its very smooth, a lot of instant torque but theres. A definite sensation thats not as fast off the line as some electric cars it doesnt have that instant surge its like theyve programmed it to give you most of the torque, but not all of it. But then it does kick in about 20.. So that kind of the usable acceleration when youre, overtaking and so on is very good, but uh theres not too much overtaking in sweden. I think its actually illegal um were now in a four lane wide freeway and the speed limit is still 70.. Oh hang on. Hang on this is a very exciting moment: theres, a sign that says 80.

just wait for it were gon na surge from 70 to 80. thats thats, probably one of the highlights of my day im glad youre here for that um, the other thing we should probably Talk about is the name of the car, its called aria, but, as you can tell from the spelling a r i y a thats, not right, it should be aria but uh. We asked nissan and they prefer that we didnt say aria its arya anyway. Im in an 80 zone uh feel the thrill Music, the 63 kilowatt hour variant offers 160 kilowatts and 300 newton meters of torque and can hit 100 kilometers an hour in 7.6 seconds. Its interesting to note that its top speed is only 160 kilometers, an hour, which means its going to be too slow to be bought by germans. The 87 kilowatt hour version of the two wheel drive aria, gets 178 kilowatts and the same 300 newton meters of torque down the line well also see the all wheel, drive eforce version which uses the 87 kilowatt hour battery, but has an extra motor on the rear. Axle and produces 225 kilowatts, 600 newton meters and a far more impressive, 5.7 second dash to 100 kilometers an hour. It also has a top speed of 200 kilometers an hour. The e force also has a towing capacity of 1500 kilos, which is double the two wheel drives capacity. We drove the base model. Two wheel, drive aria at launch, which comes with a 63 kilowatt hour battery and has a range of 403 kilometers between charges in europe.

The car is also being launched with an 87 kilowatt hour battery that provides a very impressive range of 533 kilometers. Next up will be the all wheel, drive eforce version, which will come with an 87 kilowatt hour battery only and a range of 500 kilometers. In terms of charging the headline figure for the 63 kilowatt aria, we drove was 28 minutes thats how long it takes to go from 20 to 80 charge on a dc charger or up to 350 kilometers of range in just half an hour of charging on a Home war box system, on the other hand, if youve got three phase power and 22 kilowatt charging, you can get from 10 to 100 charge in just three and a half hours with the more common seven kilowatt single phase wall box that 10 to 100 charge will Take 13 and a half hours, so there you have it the new nissan aria ev. The good news is its not just very pretty its pretty damn good. The slightly sad news is were not sure when well be getting in australia. Nissan is prioritizing other markets, the ones that actually buy lots of ebs, so we will have to wait, but you can bet that nissan australia is definitely very interested in getting this car so hopefully well see it down under.