Nissan has been going through a rough patch of late, with money draining out of the corporate coffers, dire warnings of a major turnaround needed just to keep the company alive, and a failed merger with rival Honda.
However bad things might be behind the scenes, Nissan is at least trying to fight back with some new product, and it has revealed three crucial new electric models which are due to go on sale in the next 18 months.
The first and most important one is the new Leaf. Since it was launched in 2012, the Leaf has been one of the world’s bestselling electric cars, and it was the first EV to win the coveted European Car of the Year award.
The Leaf past and current has long since been overtaken in technology and range terms by younger rivals (although sales held up, especially in Ireland, thanks to some very competitive pricing).
Now, Nissan aims to meet those rivals head on with a new third-generation Leaf, which not only gets a bigger battery but changes its shape from hatchback to low-slung crossover.
For the first time, the Leaf will get an up to date EV platform, sharing the CMF-EV chassis with the Nissan Ariya SUV and the Renault Scenic.
So far, no official technical details have been revealed, but there is talk of a 600km range, which would suggest that the more expensive versions will have a circa-80kWh battery. Presumably, that means that a smaller battery version, with a range of about 400km, will also be available, which is exactly the pattern followed by the Ariya and Scenic.
We have not seen inside the new Leaf yet, but if it borrows much from the Ariya – as seems logical – then the cabin will represent a considerable improvement in quality from the current, rather cheap-feeling Leaf.
As with range, there are no details yet about charging speeds (the Scenic can handle up to 150kW on DC power) but Nissan has said that its new three-in-one motor (which combines an electric motor, a reducer and a power inverter into one compact module) has allowed it to make considerable efficiency gains.
The company also confirmed that the new Leaf will, once again, be built in Nissan’s factory in Sunderland in the UK, which seems to secure the future of that plant for some time to come.
Nissan has also introduced a new all-electric Micra, which will be on sale before the Leaf, likely by the end of this year. The new Micra – complete with cutesy round headlights which hark back to the classic K11 and K12 versions of the 1990s and early 2000s – is based on the same AmpR-EV platform as the new Renault 5 E-Tech, and so it shares that car’s 40kWh and 52kWh batteries, and 120hp and 150hp electric motors.
That means the Micra should have a maximum range – for the larger battery version – of about 400km. It will be built alongside the Renault 5 at Renault’s factory in Douai, France.
There’s a third leg to this Nissan electric rebirth, and it’s the new all-electric Juke. So far, Nissan has shown only an occluded image of this model, which should be on sale about the same time as the new Leaf, in 2026, but we can see that the new Juke has dramatic arrowhead-shaped LE headlights, and has kept the plunging rear roofline of the current model.
It should be a bit bigger than the current Juke, though – the new EV Juke looks to also be based on the same CMF-EV platform as the new Leaf and the Ariya, so it’s likely to grow a bit compared to the existing hybrid-engined Juke.
Speaking of hybrids, Nissan has also said that it’s about to launch an upgraded version of its e-Power hybrid system. Already on sale in the Qashqai and the X-Trail SUVs, e-Power means that it uses an electric motor to do all of the driving, while there’s a 1.5 petrol engine on board to act as a generator. At no stage does the petrol engine drive the wheels, and there’s no plug for taking on mains power.
E-Power has been a success for Nissan – 1.6-million cars with the system have been sold – but this new update comes with improved efficiency at higher speeds, especially when cruising on the motorway, as well as lower emissions, and better refinement. The new e-Power system will be on sale by the end of this year, debuting in the Qashqai.
What hope for an all-electric Qashqai? It’s on the drawing boards, apparently, but has been held back for a while as Nissan waits for customer demand for EVs to catch up. Expect to see it before the end of the decade.
