Nissan LEAF EV 2012 Review

Nissan LEAF EV

Local Launch
Sydney, NSW

What we liked
>>Superb articulation of purpose
>>Decent leg muscles
>>Handling benefits from low centre of gravity

Not so much
>> Ho-hum steering
>> Current charging impracticalities
>> Usual range anxiety stuff

OVERVIEW

Yet in most countries, consumers are yet to play ball. Buyers remain sceptical towards newness and are not about to ditch their petrol and oil bangers en masse any time soon -- especially in countries like here and the US, where they don’t need a mortgage on a tank of fuel. For most of us, electric motors are still for milk vans, golf carts and classy kiddie toys.

Well, folks, here is the car best positioned yet to turn the tide. Nissan’s LEAF [Leading Environmentally-friendly Affordable Family car] doesn’t merely feel like a real car – it is one. And a well-built one, with room for four or five, reasonable space for their stuff, a well sorted underside and a bit of poke.

All the usual EV limitations are there, of course: the early adopter price, the charging times, the distance between charging points, the range and the weight of a Commodore with a boot full of dog food. And yet…

You might think 11km around Sydney’s lower eastern suburbs is all too short a drive to make one’s mind up, but such is the conviction with which the LEAF is executed, that was sufficient to induce deep 'yep-I-could-live-with-this' feelings in your correspondent.

PRICE AND EQUIPMENT

Weighed up against average wages and things, the LEAF seems rather reasonable by comparison for a technological leap of similar magnitude. Especially considering its future -- which, of course, will see its price drop and its power pack get better.

As things stand, a big hunk of that money resides in the battery. But the power pack carries an eight-year/160,000km warranty (the rest of the car carries a standard three-year/100,000km), and by the time it runs out, you can bet the replacement will be far more affordable than it is now.

Indeed, the entire price of the car and others like it will drop as EVs settle into their own market niche and assume their own space in the hearts and minds of consumers. Which they will, because there’s a massive conspiracy of legislators, carmakers, energy peddlers, lab-coats and horn rims and yes, media, ramping things up to make sure of it.

What do you get for your money is the equipment you’d expect of a midspec compact hatch: 16-inch alloys, keyless entry and start, tilt and reach adjustment for the steering, sat-nav, electric basics, Bluetooth for phone but not audio, cruise, foglights and an auto sensor for the headlights.

Along with the main power pack, the LEAF uses a conventional 12-volt lead-acid battery to power its computing and audio systems, airbag triggers, headlights and wipers. It’s kept topped up by a small solar panel on the rear spoiler.

The LEAF isn’t loaded up with the normal kit you might find on a premium hatch of its size carrying its pricetag, however. It expresses its value in more novel ways than the usual electric seats and sunroofs. An example is Nissan’s Carwings subscription telematics package, which connects the car via its standard 7-inch centre screen to a global data centre. Carwings lets you talk to the LEAF remotely via a smart phone, to set charging and switch on air conditioning to cool the car down before you arrive, even when the car’s switched off. Among other things, it incorporates charge station locations in the GPS package. Once it’s plugged in, you can also program charge timing.

The only option is an extended warranty.

Servicing resides within Nissan’s capped-price policy, so no nasty surprises during the warranty period. It’s worth remembering, too, that as EVs head towards the mainstream, consumers will likely discover one of their other great benefits: an eventual downshift in service costs. Electric motors are pretty rudimentary devices alongside combustion engines – you can count their moving parts on the fingers of one hand, and their lube requirements are minimal.

MECHANICAL

Not that it’s too easy to turn that into numbers. Performance figures are as rubbery as they come, partly thanks to the dual-mode EMS [Engine Management System], switchable between normal and Eco modes via consecutive flicks of the gear knob into Drive. In Eco it’s a bit sluggish – quite predictable given it attenuates the draw on battery power to make it last longer. That means it also curtails air conditioning, heating and acceleration.

In normal drive mode the LEAF can pack a wallop, both off the mark and in the midrange. Nissan’s coy with official figures, but you’ll find reports online of 0-100 sprints varying between 7.0-9.5sec. Rolling acceleration is good. They’ve built an override into the Eco mode, meaning when you kick it down it reverts temporarily to normal. Lift your foot and you’re back in Eco.

Nissan’s official range figure is 170km (NEDC), but our test drive showed us very quickly just how much you can influence that with your driving style and use of power-hungry HVAC functions. Switching from normal to Eco mode, our car’s range estimate jumped dramatically, adding 15-30km. Booting up the air pulled it straight back down, to a similar degree. The more time you spend in Eco and the less your foot’s down, the better off you are.

The 24kWh lithium-ion battery pack comprises 48 modules of four cells each, divided between spaces underfloor and beneath the rear seat. That keeps the centre of gravity nice and low, which can only assist the independent front strut/torsion beam rear suspension in keeping ride and handling tidy.

The steering box is a speed-sensitive electrically assisted rack-and-pinion affair

PACKAGING

What it adds up to is this: for a $3K premium over the $48K Mitsu you get an EV that feels like a premium compact hatch. So well executed is the LEAF that the interior feels well on the way to worthy of the pricetag. In materials quality and fit and finish, it’s up there with similar-sized petrol and diesel hatches carrying flash German badges.

In ambience, many will see the LEAF as bettering many a 1 Series or A3, thanks to Nissan’s choice of predominantly creamy tones in the dash plastics, door trims and all those places where Germans use black. Rather than darkening its heart, the restrained use of black around the instrument binnacle. centrestack and console adds class. Although one can’t help but suspect it wouldn’t take long for all those creamy tones to start showing their lesser side once the kids climb in…

The cockpit expresses 21st-century high-tech without overdoing the ornamentation. A bi-level instrument binnacle places the digital speedo in a letterbox slot up top, with the larger binnacle below serving up comprehensive details of momentary and averaged energy consumption, battery charge, power and range, even charge time estimates using different voltages.

The only concession to the current green-cheese trend prevalent in EV and hybrid product lies in the tree symbols alongside the speedo – the greener you drive, the more trees it displays.

The thick urethane steering wheel has a soft, deluxe tactility about it, extending to the cruise, computing and audio switchgear on it.

The seats are on the soft side – they reminded this posterior of Citroen chairs. But the driver’s seat height adjustment and the tilt/telescopic wheel make it easy to get comfy whether you’re tall or small.

Rear seat legroom is better than many of its ilk, although for long rides it’s not for five adults. Fitting adult legs in the back for a journey of any duration requires a bit of compromise on the part of those up front. But then, considering four adults would run it 'dry' about half way from Sydney to Canberra, perhaps that’s not really an issue.

SAFETY

The disc brakes – ventilated up front – have been calibrated to easily accommodate the car’s unusual weight for its size. While Friday afternoon school pickup time round our test circuit was not the time or the place to put them to any serious test, a couple of reasonably vigorous stomps suggested they’re plenty big and strong enough.

The energy regeneration system, which turns deceleration into friction and electrical energy, assists on that front.

COMPETITORS

By ‘right buyer’ we mean a regular short-haul commuter with enough spare cash to stump up for the car itself and for the necessary other stuff, such as off-street parking/charging and the ability to get an electrician out to make sure the house wiring’s up to accommodating a charge post. Once those caveats are met, it’s a satisfying drive with a cabin that’s a very nice place to be.

There’s one other caveat – Nissan is still in the early stages of rolling the LEAF out to its dealer network. But like so much else about EVs, that will change, sooner rather than later.

ON THE ROAD

Of course, a car of this size could do without some of that 1.8 tonnes. But while it’s stuck with it, it does a good job first of harnessing all that torque to get it off the mark, then of turning the weight into usable momentum. Get it going and it just rolls and rolls with no foot on the pedal at all. Flick it to Eco, apply a little foot pressure and very little happens at all. Kicking it down wakes it up, though – there’s certainly enough oomph there for a decent overtaking manoeuvre.

Of course, we had it on light duties only, with two people and no luggage on board. But even adding some people and things, there’s enough torque on tap to keep it from running out of puff, although it would take its toll on range.

Handling benefits from the low centre of gravity that goes with keeping the battery down low. Nissan has balanced out suspension travel with damping to ensure it absorbs the worst of a crappy road surface with unusual efficacy. And it does so quietly – it has a nicely insulated, Lexus-like feel about it in the solidity of its underpinnings.

While we’ve yet to test it on a decent coarse-chip surface at freeway speeds, it seems exceptionally quiet for a smallish hatch, and not just because of the near-silent powertrain.

The steering is what you’d expect of an electrically assisted box in a FWD context. It’s reasonably weighted at road speeds, but rather remote from the road and devoid of sensory value.

All that said, we’ll reserve proper judgement until we get more time with the LEAF: more time, over more kilometres, through more challenging conditions. I’d like to find out more about what that low centre of gravity does through a few decent corners. Not that I expect to discover a hidden Lotus within, but I do suspect the LEAF is well enough engineered to serve up something for the senses beyond the pleasures of that very nice interior.

It’s to Nissan’s great credit that its first mass market EV invites one to test its abilities thus. We’ll report back when we’re able to put it through a few corners outside of school-zone time.

Most of all, we want more time with it to confirm how manageable it might be to live with. This writer hopes that’s the case -- because it’s proved thoroughly compelling so far.

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