Think electric cars, and your mind will doubtless flit between the G-Whizz, outlandish concept cars that’ll never hit British roads, and finally, a milk float. But the Nissan Leaf is about to change that. It’s the first all-electric plug in family car to hit the tarmac, and we’ve had an early turn behind the wheel to see if it can shake off the ‘leccy car’s dowdy image.
From the outside, the Nissan Leaf is a standard-looking family runaround. Sure, there’re the odd quirky design touches (like those sculpted headlines, which rise up from the bonnet) but roundly, it’s an average hatchback.
Look closer though, and you’ll notice there’s no petrol cap. The roof has a small solar panel embedded behind the aerial. And that aerial itself, well, it looks a bit odd.
That’s because this car runs on pure electricity from batteries embedded in its floor. The charging socket is cunningly concealed in the Nissan Leaf’s nose (so you’ll never have to park to the left or right of a charging station to hook it up), and those odd bodywork stylings? They’re there to reduce wind noise, since there’s no grumbling engine to mask them.
The headlamps’ shape creates a vacuum in their wake, which the Nissan Leaf’s wing mirrors neatly slip into, cutting out wind noise. That bulbous aerial is design not to whistle at high speeds, and even the windscreen wipers have next-gen motors, so their whirring won’t be audible as you pootle along in near silence.
Those headlamps might look odd, but they create a vacuum so the wingmirrors don't whistle
And speaking of silence, the Nissan Leaf is so quiet its engineers had to add artificial noises to avoid sneaking up on unwitting pedestrians. Drive at low speeds, and a sound system kicks in to provide an synthesised grumble to warn passers by. Reverse, and the Nissan Leaf emits a warning siren.
What’s it like to drive?
Hop inside the Nissan Leaf, and you’ll be treated to an above-standard family car experience. Electric windows for all passengers, air conditioning, and a web-connected satnav, able to update its library of charging stations on the go, are all standard issue.
Prod the power button, and the dashboard leaps into life. As you’d expect, it’s entirely digital with meters to show the battery left, and the distance it’ll get you. A handy display also tells you roughly how long it’ll need to be charged next time you hook up.
Above that instrument panel is a speedometer, again in digital form, with a neatly styalised tree icon next to it. Drive calmly, and efficiently, and that tree will grow. Keep driving like a responsible eco citizen, and you’ll grow a bunch of trees. It’s Nissan’s way of incentivising economic driving, and you know what? It actually works. We’re now addicted to growing digital trees, and not ashamed to admit it.
All the Nissan Leaf's instruments are electric, and this one lets you "grow trees" as you drive efficiently
Being an all-electric car, the gizmos inside the Nissan Leaf aren’t a real surprise: What is eyebrow raising, however, is its performance. In near silence, with your foot planted to the upholstered flooring, it’ll plant a grin firmly on your fizzog. The acceleration it’s capable of isn’t absurd, but given it’s running on nothing more than jumped-up mobile phone batteries, it’s a pleasant surprise to be booted in the back by nothing more than electrons.
Braking too is sharp and precise. Nissan has supplemented the regenerative braking technology usually found on electric vehicles with hydraulic disc brakes. They clamp down when you brake hard, giving a reassuringly firm halt to proceedings.
And charging up?
The Nissan Leaf, like all electric cars, needs to be juiced up every 100 miles or so. That’s why Nissan’s positioning it firmly as a city car. You’re not going to drive from Lands End to Aberdeen in this thing, at least not without several overnight stops along the way. That said, it’ll juice up at a fast charging point in 30 minutes, giving you an 80% charge which is more than sufficient to get on your way.
A normal charging station, which Nissan envisages will soon be installed by roadside parking spots and in customers’ garages, takes eight hours to fully restore the battery.
It doesn't look dignified, but the Nissan Leaf's 'nose charger' means you don't have to remember which side to plug it in
We test drove the Nissan Leaf in Lisbon, where there’s a healthy electric infrastructure springing up. Likewise, London’s getting its fair share of plug-in power points for cars too, and Nissan says we’ll be amongst the first countries to see the Leaf on sale next year.
Our only questions about the viability of a city car such as the Nissan Leaf remain around this charging infrastructure, and to be fair to Nissan it’s not a problem they can do much about. British councils and governments have pledged support for electric vehicles, but until there’s a charging point on every corner, or at least in every petrol station, we’re still going to feel some of the “range anxiety” Nissan’s own technology is trying to combat.
Any next-gen features?
What? Driving on battery power alone isn’t enough for you? You’re in luck. Nissan has packed the Nissan Leaf with a host of features to keep tech-savvy drivers happy. The Bluetooth-equipped stereo and web-connected satnav come standard, but you can also tap into the Nissan Leaf’s electronic brain from an iPhone app or desktop computer.
Check on its battery charge while you’re at work, turn on the heater inside the car from your bed, or even plan a route on your desktop PC or Mac, then sync it to the car’s satnav wirelessly.
Nissan's iPhone app lets you control the Leaf's charging, air con and satnav from afar
Nissan wasn’t ready to show its iPhone app when we took the Leaf our for a trial run, but we saw options on its dashboard for timed heating too, so even if you don’t own one of Apple’s mobiles, you can still have the car nice and toasty each morning, with an automotive equivalent of central heating. Hey, who said being green means being uncomfortable?!
