The Nissan Ariya will quickly arrive on the firm’s U.S. dealerships, but it surely gained’t be the one EV featured at them.
The opposite, in fact, is the Nissan Leaf. The Ariya crossover isn’t replacing Leaf: Nissan lowered the Leaf’s price a pair years in the past, seemingly to make room for the Ariya.
The 2023 Nissan Leaf sees some function modifications, inside a slimmed-down lineup, and a few particulars reveal slight positive factors in effectivity for the long-running electrical hatchback.
2023 Nissan Leaf
From a configuration standpoint, the battery pack shifts from 62 kwh to 60 kwh. It’s essentially the most vital replace to the Leaf for the reason that 2019 mannequin’s Plus version gained its 62-kwh battery pack. That pushed the Leaf, for the primary time, previous the 200-mile barrier that some may say distinguishes a long-range EV.
By the EPA rankings, vary with the newly downsized pack dips barely, however effectivity rises barely. The 2022 Nissan Leaf earned 104 MPGe mixed in SV or SL type with the 62-kwh battery pack, amounting to a 215-mile vary, or 108 MPGe in base S Plus type (not provided), bringing a 226-mile vary. The 2023 Leaf SV earns a 109 MPGe mixed ranking and a 212-mile vary, though it’s the EPA’s city-cycle numbers that issue into that the majority considerably.
The battery pack change isn’t simply capability (gross, not usable, within the Leaf’s case). Nissan informed Inexperienced Automotive Reviews that there are precise battery-chemistry modifications at play, in addition to what Nissan describes as “minor aerodynamic enhancements for this mannequin yr.”
2023 Nissan Leaf
The modifications “allowed us to take care of the nice worth of Leaf with minimal—if any—impression on vary,” based on Nissan communications supervisor Dan Passe. The Leaf, which is U.S.-built, begins at $36,895 in its 60-kwh model, or simply $28,895 in base 40-kwh type, and till the tip of the yr it’s nonetheless eligible for the total $7,500 EV tax credit.
The Leaf stays noteworthy as the one air-cooled EV for the U.S. market, and Nissan has made a collection of working modifications to the chemistry that, after greater than a decade in the marketplace, make the Leaf’s pack much less liable to warmth and vary degradation than earlier variations. As cell chemistry and battery administration methods have advanced, air-cooling is as soon as once more being thought-about by automakers—Mercedes-Benz, for instance—as a weight-saving risk for future EVs.
Nissan Leaf and Fermata Vitality FE-15 bidirectional charger
Nissan hasn’t swapped the Leaf’s CHAdeMO fast-charging port for a CCS one, however earlier this yr it accredited the primary warranty-supported bidirectional charger for the Leaf, permitting it to produce energy again to the grid in some configurations.
Whereas an eventual future substitute may see a deeper stage of change, for now these incremental range boosts and effectivity enhancements present that Nissan hasn’t forgotten about its most inexpensive EV.
