Second Generation Nissan LEAF — More Goodness, Same Money

Nissan just unveiled its new 2018 Nissan LEAF, which features a completely new exterior design that is sure to be less polarizing and more in line with the look and feel of the rest of the Nissan fleet. Following the event, Nissan launched the official 2018 Nissan LEAF website to lure the thousands viewing the livestream in with all the juicy details.

The additional details highlight just how much Nissan has done to round off the edges on the first-generation LEAF that made it a less attractive option for mainstream consumers, while also adding exciting new autonomous vehicle technology to ensure it would continue to be relevant in light of the onslaught from the Tesla Model 3.

Longer Range

The 40 kWh battery pack affords the new 2018 Nissan LEAF an impressive 400 kilometer (249 mile) range that puts it at the top of its class in range, but seemingly on the unrealistic Japanese system. [Edit: Presuming the 400 km estimate is on the Japanese system, the EPA rating should be considerably lower, likely even putting the figure below the base Model 3. But we have to wait for the EPA rating to confirm how much different the rating will be. That said, the Nissan press release mentions 150 miles of range at one point. The Tesla Model 3 has an EPA rating of 220 miles of range and the Chevrolet Bolt has an EPA rating of 238 miles of range.]

That battery is able to be refilled at an impressive rate as well, with a 40 minute charge time from the built-in low battery alert back to an 80% charge. That will not break any speed records and likely still feels slow to mainstream consumers, but it shows that it’s possible to keep quick charge times down as 200+ mile EVs drive battery sizes higher and higher.

The longer range on the new 2018 Nissan LEAF — nearly triple that of the first-generation 85 mile LEAF — was done without tripling the capacity of the battery. This impressive feat is a testament to Nissan’s expertise in electric powertrains, especially when considering that Nissan made the powertrain even more powerful with a new 147 horsepower | 236 lb-ft torque electric motor. What’s more, Nissan brought all of this new technology and efficiency into the new 2018 LEAF while keeping the MSRP under $30,000!

Mainstream Vehicle Design

Anyone who has driven the first generation Nissan LEAF knows the looks others give the car. It’s a funny looking vehicle with strange headlights that protrude from the front of the car like bug eyes sticking out from the front. I distinctly recall the looks my coworkers gave it when the first saw it in the parking lot, laughing at how silly they thought it looked while I looked on from the distance. I personally like the look of the first-generation LEAF, but at the same time prefer EVs with more mainstream appeal simply because they are more likely to be adopted by mainstream consumers. We have to save the planet here, people.

For that reason, I am thoroughly satisfied that Nissan went back to the drawing board with the redesign of the 2018 Nissan LEAF, which has a much more mainstream look to it while still holding onto some of the fun design cues of the original. The high, awkward, first-generation LEAF has had its top chopped, leaving behind a lower, sportier LEAF that carries forward some of the design elements from the Nissan IDS Concept without similarly alienating consumers by going full-bore modern.

The nose of the new LEAF is striking and aggressive, sharpening up the round, bubbly curves that defined the first generation and tightening up the edges. It is almost as if the first-generation LEAF went away for a boot camp for the summer and has only now taken off the wraps to reveal its new hardbody.

Autonomous Driving Features

Nissan didn’t stop there with the new LEAF but instead took on the competition head on with the intentional inclusion of the Nissan ProPILOT Assist solution that brings along a smattering of autonomous driving technologies that aim to compete with Tesla’s Autopilot solution.

“The new Nissan LEAF drives Nissan Intelligent Mobility, which is the core brand strategy for Nissan’s future,” said Hiroto Saikawa, president and chief executive officer of Nissan. “The new Nissan LEAF, with its improved autonomy range, combined with the evolution of autonomous drive technology, such as ProPILOT Assist and the simple operation of the e-Pedal, strengthens Nissan’s EV leadership, as well as the expansion of EVs globally. It also has the core competency of future Nissan models.”

ProPILOT Assist is Nissan’s implementation of one of my favorite autonomous driving technologies — Traffic Aware Cruise Control (TACC) — which allows the driver to set the cruise control speed and adjusts dynamically to traffic conditions as they change around the vehicle. If the driver in front of the vehicle slows down quickly, ProPILOT will accordingly decrease the speed of the vehicle to maintain a preset buffer distance (or time), set by the driver.

Nissan pushed beyond mere intelligent cruise control with the ability to actually steer the vehicle, keeping it centered in the lane. The combination of these two technologies will make freeway driving much less stressful as the driver hands over control to ProPILOT. As it is not a fully autonomous driving solution, the driver will be required to maintain a presence in the driver’s seat and ready to takeover for the system, but it represents a step change improvement compared to other Nissan vehicles. With that in mind, expect to see ProPILOT making its way into other Nissan vehicles.

ProPILOT can bring the vehicle to a complete stop and resume driving without any input from the driver for an experience that should drastically reduce the strain on drivers during stop-and-go driving. ProPILOT also includes many other active safety features, like: Intelligent Lane Intervention, Lane Departure Warning, Intelligent Emergency Braking, Blind Spot Warning, Rear Cross Traffic Alert, and Intelligent Around View Monitor with moving object detection.

Single Pedal Driving with e-Pedal

When ProPILOT can’t be activated, Nissan has designed its new e-Pedal system to make single-pedal driving a reality in the new LEAF. e-Pedal allows a driver to use the accelerator pedal to accelerate as normal by depressing the pedal, but it changes the behavior of the pedal as it is released, gradually applying a stiff regenerative effect to slow the vehicle as if it were braking. Nissan believes that its intelligent implementation of this system will allow drivers to perform more than 90% of driving with just one pedal.

Summary

Overall, the new LEAF is a game changer for Nissan, with nearly 3 times the range of the first-generation LEAF, a more mainstream design that is sure to appeal to a larger segment of consumers, and autonomous driving technologies that will make driving safer and easier for drivers. Offering these step change improvements at a price point under $30,000 USD makes the new LEAF extremely competitive compared to its peer group and feels like a great spot compared to the new Tesla Model 3 as a lower-priced alternative with more range.

Chevy is surely not excited about the news, as the base price of the new LEAF undercuts the base price of the Chevy Bolt by a staggering $7,500 while offering autonomous driving features that simply aren’t available in the Bolt. Looking to the future, the LEAF sets a very high bar for other automotive manufacturers looking to compete in the $30,000 electric vehicle market.

2018 NISSAN LEAF FIRST DRIVE REVIEW

“You know what I’d do if I were you guys?” The jet lag from the 11-hour flight to Japan had me talking in a stream of consciousness. “I’d build a NISMO version of the Leaf. Make it all crazylike, you know what I mean?” The young Nissan engineer sitting across from me stared back blankly. I tried a different angle. “The Leaf’s image needs a big shakeup. I mean, Elon Musk has had the press in the palm of his hand with his Insane- and Ludicrous-mode stuff, right? How about you do something like that!” Without a muscle twitch of expression, he replied, “Thank you for your suggestion, Mr. Reynolds. I’ll pass your views along to our team.” Then he gave me a polite, Japanese nod of the head.

Well, that went badly. Was it too obvious that I think the Nissan Leaf is a car in need of a pulse?

If done right, though, this redesigned 2018 version of the car has the makings of a NISMO EV heart-pounder. About 30 minutes earlier, maybe 50 of us were seated around the Leaf for its styling explainer at the Nissan Technical Center. But the whole time, I’d been staring at its profile, thinking that it reminds me of another car. Light bulb: the Faraday Future 91 I rode in a few months ago. I Googled its profile. The 91 is longer, but yes, there are some very similar ideas here.

Audi Adopts New Nomenclature to Replace Engine Size Badges

01:0001:38

VIEW ALL 58 PHOTOS

Learn more about the Leaf here: Eight Nerdy Things to Like About the 2018 Nissan Leaf

And what’s important about that statement is this: Whether that Faraday sinks or (miraculously) swims, it’s a seriously cutting-edge design. And here I am, comparing it to the descendant of one of this century’s most notorious oddballs.

If Leaf 1 (my name for it) looked like a four-wheel amphibian, this Leaf 2 before us has not only flash-evolved into a svelte automotive shape, but it’s also learned to speak in the visual language of the rest of Nissan’s edgy designs. I must say, I’m not a fan of every word in its vocabulary—particularly Nissan’s Vmotion grilles. But for Leaf duty the rabbit-grin frames an interesting 3-Dish blue finish, which does pull you closer in to study it. And did you know that Leaf 1’s surprised-eyes headlights had an aerodynamic purpose? They did—to twirl air sideways and around the side mirrors. Now the twirling’s done by more elegant ribs on the hood, a trick Nissan’s aerodynamicists later demonstrated in a full-size wind tunnel where we watched smoke from the tip of a handheld wand magically bend sideways off the cowl. EVs are quiet, amplifying your awareness of side-mirror wind hiss; the ribs specifically hush that. There are additional noise defeaters, too, including greater rigidity of the inverter, a noise-blocking top for the integrated charger and DC-to-DC power inverter, and even a quieter motor.

I looked back at the profile. There’s a lot going on here. But I’d characterize it as complex rather than busy. Although the Bolt shares many of these same EV-identifying cues, it’s a jigsaw jumble of pieces—some of them are a bit too forced into place. The Nissan’s elements are all aware of each other. Fit together like the neat rectangles in a Piet Mondrian painting. (Ironically, the Model 3 entirely dispenses with all these noisy little EV cues, being finished with starkly pure surfacing. To equate it to another painter, I’d pick my favorite one, Mark Rothko.)

While we’re staring at the new Leaf’s profile, let’s use it to do a little automotive detective work. Imagine overlaying the current Leaf’s profile on it. See the match? The front and rear wheels exactly align—a giveaway that Leaf 2’s platform is fundamentally carryover bones not only in wheelbase but also in front track (its rear one is 0.8 inch wider), its essential suspension components, and the positioning of all the basic building blocks needed to assemble a modern EV. Consequently, its interior specs are a close match, too (it’s luggage space is more useful from ironing out small intrusions); externally, it’s 1.4 inches longer, 0.8 inch wider, and 0.4 inch taller.

But don’t dis Leaf 2 as just some sort of overblown reskin. Nissan’s techs took the time to sprawl it out on their engineering operating table for a marathon multiple-organ transplant; the motor is all-new, spinning out a chunky 147 hp instead of 107 and 236 lb-ft of torque, up from 187 lb-ft. The electric power steering is more refined. Nissan is anxious to note that although companies are ballyhooing the births of their first EVs, Yokohama was there/did that back in 2010 and now has 270,000 customers, 2.1 billion miles of user experience, and programs such as 6,000 Leaf-to-home installations in Japan, where bidirectional charging/discharging coupled with solar roofs is slashing power bills. This ain’t Nissan’s first rodeo. It’s their second. And the show could be on the brink of going big time—the cost of battery storage has dropped from $300/kW-hr in 2015 to a projected $150 by 2020/23 and below $100 by 2025/26, according to a Morgan-Stanley analysis. (Nissan’s says they’re beating this.) And by the mid-2020s, battery-electric cars will be cheaper than internal combustion ones (in part due to the ramping complexity of internal combustion engines).

So.

Nissan should have anticipated the Bolt and base Model 3’s 238- and 225-mile ranges, right? Cue the drumroll. How big is the new Leaf’s battery pack (still underfloor and cooled with recirculated air, by the way)?

Forty kW-hrs for 150 miles of range (S and SV trims). Eyes narrowed. Chins rubbed. True, that doubles the original Leaf’s 73-mile capability (from 24 kW-hrs) and is a 40 percent jump from its current 107 miles (from 30 kW-hrs).

In a world without the Chevrolet Bolt, 150 miles would be a bold type headline. Now it’s a number in a math problem: How much less is it than 238? There’s going to be a lot of data thrown at you arguing that 150 miles more than matches most people’s real-world lifestyles most of the time. Let me ask you: How many gasoline-powered, five-passenger sedans could be sold with a 150-mile range?

Maybe anticipating criticism, the Leaf will offer an even-better-chemistry 60-kW-hr pack next year (SL trim), likely extending its leash to about 225 miles (a two-tier strategy akin to the Model 3’s estimated 50 and 75 kW-hrs). Thus, the Bolt’s singular battery size will be bookended by its competitors, with the Nissan’s upgraded pack matching it and the Tesla’s smaller pack offering Bolt-competitive range due to better sedan aerodynamics. (One of the reasons, by the way, why I think Tesla controversially went with a mass-produced sedan first: A crossover’s worse aero would require a bigger, more expensive battery—something that’ll be more affordable by the time the Model Y makes its debut.) If carrying over the Leaf 1’s platform has painted Nissan into a corner, it’s these subsequently locked in battery dimensions that require expensive chemistry to keep it apace with the Bolt and base Model 3. (A plus for us is that it offers an insight into the march of ever-rising energy density; those additional 16 kW-hrs crammed in there mean 67 percent greater energy density in seven years, or 9.5 percent per year.) Another questionable call: clinging to the CHAdeMO standard for fast charging. Maybe it’s stubbornness, maybe Nissan’s got a giant investment in this thing, but CHAdeMO is a dead plug walking in the U.S., and Nissan would do the EV cause a big, fat favor by finally adopting SAE (or everybody going to Tesla’s standard).

Time to drive. During their presentations, Nissan repeatedly emphasized twin messages: One, the Leaf is about making driving less stressful, and two, it’s about making driving fun. Not knowing what stress-free, fun driving exactly means, we headed out onto the test track to find out.

The new Leaf’s most potent driving relaxers?

ProPilot Assist is sort of a Tesla Autopilot light (at a fraction of the price). Relying on just a single forward-facing radar and a monocular video camera, ProPilot Assist provides single-lane, feet-off-the-pedals driving (what’s called adaptive cruise control). Alone, this is nothing unusual. Its dexterity in responding to slinkying traffic (including right down to 0 mph) is, though. Yet what elevates it to the same conversation as AutoPilot is how accurately it also threads down the center of the road. Like with other Level 2 semiautonomous systems, you need to keep your hands on the wheel, but here, there’s no need to give it periodic tugs. The electric power steering’s frequent and small corrections automatically sense their presence. I later tried the system in Detroit, driving for several miles on an expressway with my hands relaxed on the rim. No scoldings to put my hands back ever appeared (which, if persistently ignored, would ultimately result in the car stopping in its lane). Available later this year, ProPilot Assist is ordinary sensors doing an extraordinary job due to great software. Within two years, the system is expected to be even greater (perhaps with added sensors) by expanding to automated lane changing, and by 2020 it should have the skill to negotiate city scenarios, too. Next year it will joined by ProPilot Park, which highly automates parking, including selecting an empty spot not already bordered by a parked car (reading lane stripping). Remember this system as the tipping point when semiautonomous driving finally met the masses. (It’s had a 60 percent take rate in markets where it’s already available on other Nissan models.)

The Leaf’s other driving simplification is its one-pedal EV-driving feature—what they call e-Pedal. Tesla has long offered a similar heavy-regen effect when you release the accelerator. But completing a stop requires a brake pedal dab at the bitter end. In its transmission’s Low mode, the Bolt will come to a one-pedal stop without touching the friction brakes, but the deceleration rate isn’t always enough. E-Pedal leapfrogs both with a deceleration rate of 0.2 g’s (covering 90 percent of real-driver stopping, Nissan says) and comes to a complete stop (including automatic friction braking, if necessary). If that stop is on a hill, the Leaf’s motor will just hold it motionless (after pausing, you can lift your feet from both pedals; no need to hold the brake). The new Leaf could quickly become the most popular car in San Francisco.

E-Pedal and the availability of ProPilot Assist spotlight the intention to make the Leaf the tech standard-barer for the Nissan Intelligent Mobility Initiative, Yokohama’s campaign to destress driving.

The notable destresser, though, is the car’s lowered MSRP of $29,990 ($30,875 including destination)—a $690 drop. Standard with that is a noticeable upgrade in interior materials, and when you option a nav system, Apple CarPlay and Android Auto are included, too. After incentives, this is a heck of a deal.

But what about that driving fun factor? I can answer about 65 percent of that question. Without a doubt, its extra power and torque renders the new Leaf satisfyingly quicker and more responsive. Test-track recordings are yet to come, but given the Bolt’s and Model 3’s better power (and power-to-weight ratios) it’ll probably lag in a three-EV drag race. Interior noise is phenomenally hush—a nice complement to its supple yet controlled ride quality (absent of the bounding I’ve sometimes noticed in the Bolt). Indeed, it’s downright limousinelike compared to the Model 3’s German sport sedan tautness. However, the Tesla’s payoff is razorlike steering response, which is tough to compare to the Leaf’s because the suspensions of these Japanese prototypes were not yet tuned for Nissan’s intentions for the American market.

Intentions? Sportier ones. Which circles me back to that styling walkaround earlier in the day.

As it concluded, the chief designer had an impish look on his face. The one you have when there’s something you want to semaphore with minimal words. As he neared his seat, it finally came out: “Oh,” he paused, “and eventually, um, the letter N will be associated with the Leaf, too.” He had said too much, so out it came. “Not now, but eventually … there will be a NISMO version.”

OMG! A NISMO Leaf. The last time I predicted something this correctly was in 1987 when I knew I’d regret selling my Austin-Healey Bugeye Sprite. But here’s the deal, Nissan: Don’t screw it up. It’s your chance to permanently flip the Leaf’s librarian identity right on its peroxided head. With wings and flairs, there’s room between the rear wheels for a second motor, too. (I looked.)

Ludicrous Leaf sounds like a villain in a Batman movie.

Wireless Hybrid Bus To Launch In Sweden In 2016

Electrifying public transit could have a much more profound impact on transportation emissions than one might think. Beginning in 2016, the Swedish city of Södertälje will launch a project testing a Scania hybrid-electric bus that can wirelessly recharge in about seven minutes. A city deploying a fleet of these buses would save millions of liters of fuel annually.

“To build an infrastructure and convert bus fleets to vehicles that run exclusively on electricity will provide many advantages for a city,” says Håkan Sundelin, research and development coordinator for Scania. “With a fleet of 2,000 buses, the city can save up to 50 million litres of fuel each year. This means the fuel costs decrease by up to 90 percent.”

When the project launches, one of the bus stations will be equipped with an inductive battery recharging system that can transfer enough energy to complete a full journey back to the station. Unfortunately the press release doesn’t note exactly how far this journey is, though it’s hardly the first shot at a fast-charging electric bus. If other wireless electric buses are anything to go by though, it’s probably not very far.

Volvo is testing a similar pilot project in Sweden, but uses a powerful overhead connector to rapidly recharge batteries instead. BMW and Mercedes are among the automakers aiming to bring wireless charging to personal automobiles as well. But buses can carry many times more people, help reduce congestion, and when running primarily on electricity, can reduce urban pollution to a much greater degree.

Hybrid buses might not be the sexiest green technology out there, but wireless charging is pretty damn cool. Imagine being able to recharge your LEAF or Tesla by just parking your car for five minutes? Now that’s kinda sexy, in a nerdy car geek kinda way.