Some cars arrive with a mission to shake things up, others exist to quietly prove how far their creators have come. The new Nissan Leaf sits somewhere in the middle. It’s the third generation of a car that effectively kickstarted the modern EV movement back in 2011, and although this latest version doesn’t feel the need to shout about itself, there’s a quiet confidence to the way Nissan has gone about reinventing its pioneering hatchback. Built proudly in Sunderland once again, the Leaf returns as a British-made family EV with generous range, appealing tech and a mature driving experience that feels increasingly rare in an EV market obsessed with eye-catching gimmicks.
On paper, the latest Leaf looks like Nissan at its best: efficient, neatly styled and engineered with real-world use at its core. It’s based on the CMF-EV platform shared with the Ariya and borrowing a fair few bits from Nissan’s Alliance partner Renault. It also adopts a far more slippery shape with a drag coefficient of just 0.25 and brings with it a fully digital interior featuring Google built-in. It’s a big step forward from the previous car, which never lacked earnest appeal but was starting to feel its age in the rapidly evolving electric marketplace.
