- 2 days ago
I'm reviewing the completely new, third generation of the Nissan Leaf! This is the car that revolutionized the electric vehicle market, but in its latest iteration, it breaks away from its past. Forget the hatchback – the new Leaf is a modern crossover built on the CMF-EV platform, sharing its technology with its bigger brother, the Nissan Ariya. I test if the larger battery, a range of up to 300 miles (480-600 km WLTP), and Google Built-in are enough to beat rivals like the Kia EV3, Hyundai Kona Electric, and the Volvo EX30.
In this video, you will find answers to key questions:
Why did the new Nissan Leaf become a crossover and how did it affect interior space?
What are the real differences between the 52 kWh and the larger 75 kWh battery?
How does the Google Built-in (Android Automotive) system perform in daily use?
Can the new Leaf handle fast charging at 150 kW, and is it enough for long trips?
Are the e-Pedal technology and ProPILOT assist systems are better than in the predecessor?
The new Leaf isn't just about a new body; it’s a technological leap featuring Vehicle-to-Load (V2L) capabilities and a fresh interior with massive displays. I'm checking if this "lifted" Le
In this video, you will find answers to key questions:
Why did the new Nissan Leaf become a crossover and how did it affect interior space?
What are the real differences between the 52 kWh and the larger 75 kWh battery?
How does the Google Built-in (Android Automotive) system perform in daily use?
Can the new Leaf handle fast charging at 150 kW, and is it enough for long trips?
Are the e-Pedal technology and ProPILOT assist systems are better than in the predecessor?
The new Leaf isn't just about a new body; it’s a technological leap featuring Vehicle-to-Load (V2L) capabilities and a fresh interior with massive displays. I'm checking if this "lifted" Le
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MotorTranscript
00:00What cars did you drive back in 2010? A Ford Focus? A Toyota Auris? A Volkswagen Golf?
00:062010 was the year when the Nissan Leaf debuted, a model considered the first mass-produced electric
00:13car. The Leaf generated so much interest that it won the World and European Car of the Year awards
00:18for 2011. Today I'm in France as the juror for the World Car Awards, the same group of international
00:24journalists that crowned the Leaf 15 years ago. My goal is to get acquainted with the new generation
00:29of Nissan's electric car and share my first impressions with you. So let me take you
00:33for a first drive in the new Nissan Leaf.
01:06At first glance the third generation Nissan Leaf looks completely different from the previous
01:11two generations. The compact hatchback has transformed into a crossover. This makes sense for two reasons.
01:18First crossovers are a popular segment which, one could say, Nissan created when it launched the
01:24Qashqai in 2007. Secondly, the raised body of a crossover is perfect for concealing the battery
01:30in the floor. This allows for more battery without compromising the interior space.
01:35If the new Leaf looks somewhat familiar, it's because it's a miniature Nissan Ariya,
01:40a compact electric crossover which Nissan launched some four years ago. The new Leaf has shrunk compared
01:48to its predecessor. It's almost 15 centimeters shorter than the hatchback it replaces. Meanwhile,
01:54it is similar in size to the Hyundai Kona and the Kia EV3, but larger than the Volvo EX30.
02:07The original Nissan Leaf had a 24 kWh battery and a very optimistic range estimate of about 160
02:15kilometers. If memory serves me right, I got maybe 120 kilometers out of it. Today, a used first
02:22generation model will sell for less than 10 000 euro and can still achieve about 80 kilometers of range.
02:29Furthermore, it's relatively easy to retrofit a slightly larger battery from a facelifted model.
02:35Unfortunately, the Leaf community also remembers the first generation not just for its polarizing design,
02:43but also for problems with the air-cooled battery, which quickly degraded in hotter climates.
02:51The third generation finally features a liquid-cooled battery and the thermal management software
02:57preconditions the battery for rapid charging based on the route planned in the navigation.
03:04Also, if you don't plan your route and you just want to charge quickly, you can press a button
03:11and precondition the battery manually.
03:18The new Leaf is available with a 52 or 75 kWh NMC traction battery and can charge at 105 or
03:26150 kW
03:27respectively. This translates into a rapid charging time of about 30 minutes from 20 to 80% state of
03:35charge. Yes, 20 to 80, not 10 to 80, so not so rapid after all. The CHAdeMO socket has been
03:44replaced by CCS
03:45in Europe. In the US, there is a NACS port on one side and a J1772 for AC charging on
03:54the other.
03:54The claimed range is up to 436 km or 604 km respectively in the combined cycle. Nissan also provides an
04:04estimated
04:05highway range at 130 km per hour, which is 224 km or 330 km depending on the battery size. I
04:15won't be able to
04:16verify this today, but at the end I'll provide an average energy consumption and the conditions as well as the
04:22distance I covered. This will allow us to estimate the actual range.
04:29The Leaf feels very light to drive around the city. In my opinion, it's even too light, but maybe it's
04:38something
04:38I'd get used to. Today there was no time as I had to escape the Parisian traffic jams and head
04:44into the
04:44countryside. On the way, I covered several dozen kilometers. On the motorway, the soundproofing was
04:51good enough. The semi-autonomous driving pro-pilot system worked well as well. It's nothing fancy, but
04:59gets the job done. The quietness in the cabin is partly due to excellent aerodynamic properties, which
05:06should in turn allow for lower energy consumption and therefore a longer range. More about that in a
05:14moment. Meanwhile, here's an interesting fact. The Eurospec Leaf has market-specific wing mirrors.
05:22Nissan says it's because in Europe we drive faster and therefore we need more aerodynamic wing mirrors than
05:31in Japan or the US. Why not fit digital mirrors? Apparently they're simply too expensive.
05:39I turned off the highway into the country roads and I found that the Leaf handled surprisingly well.
05:47The suspension is tuned for comfort, so it handles bumps with ease that the French brands were once
05:54famous for. And that's despite this being on rather large wheels. Visibility is good. The A pillars are
06:01relatively thin and set far enough from the wing mirrors. Rear visibility is also better than one could
06:08expect judging by the car's shape. Note that there is no rear wiper. Nissan claims that the airflow will clear
06:17the water droplets from the rear window and whatever debris from the road or swirling behind the vehicle
06:24will not go above this little ducktail spoiler thing on the boot lid. Now the weather is quite nice today,
06:31so unfortunately I won't be able to test this for you. Disabling ESA and the driver attention monitor
06:38system, which are somewhat annoying, is very easy. It can be assigned to a personal mode which is two clicks
06:44on the steering wheel. So that's a good thing.
06:51At first glance the Leaf's interior resembles that what we've seen in the Aria. So there is an open
06:57cockpit design, there are two flat large screens and a center console, but here the console doesn't slide
07:05back and forth and the screens are connected into this one flat unit. Below them is the climate control
07:11panel. I know it's touch sensitive, but still this is better than having it on the screen. When I reviewed
07:17the Aria, Android Auto was only wired. Here it's finally wireless. While I'm driving back to Nissan
07:25headquarters, I can tell you a little bit more about what I noticed here. The first good thing is that
07:34compared to the Nissan Ariya, they brought out things like the heated steering wheel up here,
07:42so I don't have to click into the climate menu to actually see it. There is also a physical button
07:49down here over my left knee. Also positive things, physical buttons on the steering wheel to adjust
07:57cruise control pro pilot or whatever. It's whatever it's called here. You can use it to adjust what's
08:02being displayed on this screen as well as on that screen, but pretty much on this screen here. It's
08:09better to use to use your fingers or voice commands since this is Google enabled. I can have my sat
08:16nav here,
08:16here and of course on the heads up display. We have e-pedal, which is like full region braking,
08:25one pedal driving thing, or we have adjustable region braking. You can adjust it with the paddle shifters,
08:32but you can also set it to automatic, so automatic adaptive, so it will slow down based on the situation
08:42in front of you. The interior up here, you know, where it's like close to the touch and close to
08:48the eye,
08:49looks very nice. What I'm not a fan of is the rough, scratchy plastic down here. I wouldn't mind it
08:58being
08:58scratchy if it wasn't loud, because if you throw your keys in here or under the armrest, they will rattle,
09:08so that's not ideal. There is a storage compartment down here, which pops down like that.
09:18I don't know what you would store in there, but yeah, it's there, and this one works using gravity,
09:24unlike the electric one in the area. Also, this one doesn't change into a tray, it's just a storage
09:32compartment, and then there's your glove box in front of the passenger. A wireless charger, which works,
09:43and yeah, this whole Google-enabled thing, it's absolutely brilliant. I remember how bad it was
09:54in the area where they used their own sat-nav, and now it's just a much better system.
10:06Route planning with charging works much better. You can see how long you will spend at a charger,
10:12how fast the charger is, how many chargers are available or occupied, and this is just a game
10:19changer. I think they realized that they just suck at infotainment, and they'll use something from
10:29an outside provider, so that's great. Anyway, back to Paris we go.
10:42At the end of my route from Nissan Paris HQ to the countryside and back, which included some motorway
10:48driving as well as a lot of country roads, I got 16.6 kWh per 100 km. My average speed
10:55was what I would
10:57normally see in a car after driving it for a week, albeit usually it would include much more city
11:02driving. Here I drove more on B roads. This gives us about 450 km range and slots in nicely between
11:09Nissan's claimed top range of up to 604 km and the 130 km per hour motorway range, which Nissan estimates
11:17at
11:18330 km of course your mileage may vary. Nissan is very proud of its panoramic roof with liquid crystals
11:28that depending on the setting can be see-through or become opaque. Now this has helped save weight,
11:39because the retractable cover with the mechanism electric motor etc weighs like seven kilograms,
11:46and it also allowed for a bit more headroom inside, three centimeters exactly, and these three centimeters
11:53were then subtracted from the height of the car. So the car is therefore more aerodynamic. Now I'm 175
12:02centimeters tall, I'm sitting behind a driver's seat set to my driving position, and I do have
12:07leg room or knee room should I say, but foot room is tight to say the least, and here the
12:13seat is slid
12:14all the way back and very tight indeed. Now there are some air vents back here, no third zone climate
12:22control, but we have adjustable air vents, we have two USB-C ports, we've got door pockets, and
12:29some cup holders in the armrest. Now the floor is flat and one thing I noticed, I said something on
12:38the lines of
12:39that these wide across foot mats in cars are the work of the devil, and Nissan listened either to me
12:50or to
12:51its customers who drove the area with those big big floor mats, and has divided the floor mats into two,
12:59so it's now easier to pick them up, take them out, and clean them without spilling everything around the
13:06car interior, so they're listening. Also there are a couple of pockets in the seat backs, so that's useful, you
13:15can put your map here or tablets or something. The boot capacity is 437 liters, like in the Aria or
13:23the
13:23Qashqai, also here Nissan offers this two-piece false floor job, which can be used as a divider.
13:30There's still some space for your charging cables on the side of the boot, at the bottom is a styrofoam
13:36insert for repair kit. While there is no frunk, Nissan explains this choice with maximizing passenger space,
13:43it's a better explanation than whatever BMW or Mercedes tried to tell us about clients not having to open
13:49the bonnet, which resulted in creative windscreen washer fluid fillers. Also, the roof rails are real,
13:56the Nissan Leaf can be equipped with a roof rack mounted either on the rails, which are available on
14:01higher trims, or using suction mounts for lesser versions. The Leaf can also tow up to 975 kilograms.
14:10A little Nissan Easter egg, so the three-dimensional rear lamp design here on the top trim. This is two
14:19elements, this is three elements, and this means Nissan. A little Easter egg like this, and this motif is
14:27repeated around 30 times inside and out around the car. At the time of recording, prices and trim levels for
14:35the 2026 Nissan Leaf in continental Europe have not yet been announced. In the US, prices start at around
14:4231,500 dollars. In the UK, it will be in the low 30-something thousand pounds, or around 36,000
14:51euro.
14:51That's for the smaller battery base model.
14:55The third generation Nissan Leaf is certainly a leap forward compared to the previous two generations.
15:01A lot will depend on the price, because in terms of quality and usability, the new Nissan Leaf makes a
15:06very good first impression. If by the time I publish this review, the price has been announced,
15:12either the Leaf will sell like hotcakes, or Nissan should really reconsider the Leaf's pricing strategy.
15:19So, dear viewer from the future, let me know how it turned out, and what do you think about the
15:25new Nissan Leaf?
15:28If you like my sarcastic, down-to-earth, and possibly mildly amusing car reviews,
15:34join me every Friday at 3pm Central European time, and don't forget to subscribe and like this video,
15:40as it helps me move the YouTube algorithm.
15:42Thanks for watching, and I will see you in the next one.
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