Nissan Ariya Review

It would’ve been easy for Nissan to make an EV that felt and looked very similar to the instantly familiar Qashqai. Instead, the Nissan Ariya is a posher, bigger SUV with a truly showstopping interior.

The Ariya looks big and luxurious, with a sleek coupe-like shape that isn’t a million miles away from the Tesla Model Y. Touches like a rear lightbar, LED fangs at the front and a big spoiler help the Ariya stand out.

Nissan’s effort also has exclusivity on its side. Despite its many talents, the likes of the Model Y, Skoda Enyaq and Audi Q4 have comprehensively outsold the Ariya – so it’s the electric SUV to buy if you want something a bit less common.

It’s not like the Ariya is a bad car – it’s spacious, smooth to drive and well equipped. And you’ll soon spot the attention to detail, from the lightly illuminated panels that pay homage to traditional Japanese craft, to the buttons that only appear when the car’s turned on.

Like many of its rivals, there are two battery sizes to pick from. The cheaper 63kWh pack will be plenty if you mainly travel locally, or there’s an 87kWh pack that’ll be an essential pick for higher-mileage drivers.

Ooh, Nissan, we didn’t know you could make interiors like this! The Ariya’s interior is a delightful place to sit, seeming much posher than the Qashqai and Juke.

There are touch buttons integrated within the wood-effect trim, which look like they’ve been beamed straight from the distant future. Proper buttons would be easier to use, mind. The air vents are highlighted with a bit of trim that stretches right across the cabin, giving the interior a spacious feel.

Also doing that job is the space between the front seats – there’s no centre console taking up unnecessary space. While we could argue that that space could be used for a rucksack or ‘stuff’, it’s nice to have the open area.

Above all the space-age buttons is a panel of screens: a touchscreen and a digital instrument cluster. These work well and are generally quick enough to respond, but the graphics are just a bit basic. They’re one of the few hangovers from the Qashqai and Juke that you’ll find in the Ariya.

We wouldn’t feel the need to go further than the cheapest Advance spec, because it includes nice-to-haves such as heated front seats, a heated windscreen, an electric bootlid, powered seats and a 360-degree parking camera.

If you do step up to the Evolve trim, you’ll additionally get a 10-speaker Bose sound system, a panoramic sunroof, a power-sliding centre console, heated rear seats and cooled front seats.

Combining the Ariya’s size and a fully electric powertrain means you get a very spacious car. Passenger room is superb both front and rear. There’s plenty of front seat adjustment and, even with them pushed fully back, there’s still decent amounts of rear legroom.

With the front seats in a more normal position, rear-seat passengers might feel like they’re in a stretched limousine. Especially because the seats are a bit reclined for long-distance comfort.

If you need to carry a car full of adults, it won’t quite feel so luxurious, but the flat floor and decent-sized middle seat mean the Ariya is decent enough for three adults side-by-side on shorter journeys.

Besides the slightly annoying zipped Isofix points, the Ariya promises to be an excellent family car. The doors open really wide, like the Qashqai, so it’s super easy to lug heavy child seats in and out.

Boot space stands at 466 litres (408 for all-wheel-drive versions), which is a bit small for the class – the Peugeot e-3008, Skoda Enyaq, Renault Scenic E-Tech and Tesla Model Y all give you more on-paper luggage space. There’s a false floor, which takes away the load lip and gives a flat space when the seats folded. But the false floor boards are a bit annoying if you try to remove them – they’re easy to pull out but hard to put back in.

The Ariya comes with not one, but two gloveboxes. Maybe for his’n’hers gloves. There are also prominent cupholders, a hidden wireless phone charger and useful storage areas.

You’ve got the choice of 63kWh and 87kWh batteries, offering up to 250 and 329 miles respectively (according to the lab tests).

Nissan is refreshingly honest about what you could actually achieve in real driving. It reckons you’ll manage just 126 miles in the 63kWh version when driving a fully loaded car at 70mph in freezing temperatures. On the flipside, leave your passengers behind and drive in urban areas, and you could see 321 miles in 15-degree weather.

In the same set of conditions, the bigger battery achieves 171 miles (motorway, fully loaded, freezing conditions) and 346 miles in temperate town driving. If anything, it serves to show how different your range figure could be from the official WLTP estimate.

The 63kWh battery is mated to a 217hp front-mounted motor, and 0-62mph takes an entirely competitive 7.5 seconds. It won’t keep pace with a Tesla, but will make light work of everyday driving.

You get slightly more power in the 87kWh version to offset the heavier battery, so acceleration remains the same.

Opt for the clunkily named e-4orce model (dual motor, all-wheel drive) and the power jumps to 306hp. The torque figure doubles to 600Nm. Pin the throttle and you’ll reach 62mph in just 5.7 seconds, on the way to a 124mph top speed.

You’ll need the e-4orce for towing – its 1,500kg capacity is twice as much as the single-motor versions manage.

The top-rung Nismo model can’t tow at all, but it can reach 0-62mph in five seconds. Unfortunately, the Nismo badge (which is like magic dust on Nissan’s sports cars) doesn’t turn the Ariya into a racecar for the road. While there are numerous chassis upgrades and go-faster red exterior accents, the main effect of the changes is noticeably reduced efficiency. Rather than the 319 miles offered by the regular e-4orce model, the Nismo model knocks that down to 261 miles.

Don’t be tempted to go for the Nismo version – the Ariya was never destined to be a sporty car.

Comfort and smoothness are the Ariya’s areas of strength. Drive it like the luxury limo it feels like and the Ariya is fantastically calm.

The steering is light around town, making the Ariya’s considerable size easy to manage, but it gets progressively heavier as you go faster – so it’s not at all twitchy on the motorway. The brakes are predictable and you’ll struggle to notice the transition between the regenerative braking from the electric motor and the friction braking from the discs.

A number of electric cars produce a fair bit of tyre noise on the motorway, and the Ariya’s no exception. Partly because it’s large and heavy, but mostly because there’s no engine to create a constant hum to mask the tyres.