Nissan Ariya EV first look

Nissan’s Ariya EV is a gorgeous, mid-size electric vehicle that is spacious, smooth and dazzlingly high-concept.

The Ariya is a very impressive and attractive EV that comes in just the right size

Now that motor shows are a thing of the past – Australia hosted its last in 2009 – it feels like concept cars, with their wildly futuristic and optimistic designs, have also been consigned to history. But Nissan has made one remarkable exception, by putting its stunning Ariya EV onto the roads.

The Ariva Concept was unveiled at the Tokyo Motor Show back in 2019 (yes, other countries do still have motor shows, although decreasingly few of them) and it looked typically fantastical, with a front end seemingly modelled on Judge Dredd’s helmet, or a Blade Runner flying car, and its unfeasibly spacious interior.

Incredibly, at the Ariya road car’s recent launch in Sweden, I asked a designer how much the car had changed from concept to reality, and the only thing he could think of was that they’d replaced camera-style wing mirrors with real ones.

Designers, as you’d expect, love doing concepts, because they can have fun with them. But it’s not since Audi’s legendary TT leapt from motor show stand to real world, in all its Bauhaus brilliance, in the 1990s that a car has made the jump like this.

Apparently, some people find the look of the Ariya a little too much, a trifle too futuristic, but I’m not one of them. Nissan calls it ‘Japanese Futurism’, which is sleek, seamless and confident.

What is particularly remarkable about its design, aside from the bold and brassy colour scheme (it’s called Akatsuki, or two-tone copper) and clean lines, is that it manages to make a small SUV – it’s almost Nissan Qashqai sized in terms of its dimensions – into something that actually makes your mouth fall open in admiration.

The design wonders continue inside, where the engineers have cleverly used the space opened up under the bonnet by the removal of a big lump of engine to push the car’s air conditioning unit and its associated parts forward, under the bonnet, which opens up plenty of legroom.

Underneath the bonnet of the Ariya

The feeling of space for the driver and front passenger is made so much more impressive by the flat floor and complete lack of a transmission tunnel. Once again, Nissan has a Japanese term for the way it feels inside – “Ma”, which means the mastery of empty space. Personally, it all makes me want to go and watch re-runs of Monkey.

The rear seats are also far more spacious than any conventional car of this size, almost limo-like, thanks to the car’s clever packaging, and the inclusion of a Sliding Centre Console, which, at the touch of a button, can be adjusted to make the driver’s elbow more comfortable, or to create enough space in the back for an actual human to sit in the middle seat.

Speaking of buttons, the switches for the Ariya’s functions are all beautifully embedded in the faux timber yet lovely surfaces of the minimalist dash and provide delectable haptic feedback when you touch them. It all feels like the kind of interior quality you get from a German car, not a Japanese one.

There’s also a Magic Box under the dash, which slides open at the nudge of another button to reveal a storage space big enough for a proper iPad, or 50 sandwiches.

Then there are the screens, of course, the must-have feature of any modern car, and they are large, with a 12.3-inch touchscreen in the centre, and another 12.3-inch digital driver display that can be configured to your personal taste. Even more Minority Report, you can set up the satnav on the central screen and then, with a two-finger swipe, send it to the one in front of the driver. Clever.

The Ariya’s swish minimalist interior

We flew all the way to Sweden – famously the most dangerously dull place to drive in the universe – to drive the Ariya. Aside from enjoying the look, it was a pleasant experience.

The nifty Nissan feels refined, obviously it’s very quiet, it rides and corners well, is reasonably involving to drive and has the usual, elastic mid-range punch you get from EVs, but not quite as much instant shove off the line as others.

We were driving the entry-level model, however, which has front-wheel drive only, via a single motor, and a 64kWh battery, offering 403km of range, 160kW and 300Nm.

Ariya will also offer a bigger 87kWh version, which lifts range to a handy 533km, and takes power to 178kW (torque stays at 300Nm).

The exciting one will be called E-4orce, and will have two electric motors for all-wheel drive, the 87kWh battery, 225kW, 600Nm, 500km of range and the ability to sprint to 100km/h in 5.7 seconds (the two-wheel-drive takes 7.6 seconds).

The E-4orce also has a towing capacity of 1500kg, which is double what you get in the base Ariya.

In terms of charging, Nissan says the 63kWh Ariya can get from 20 to 80 per cent of charge in just 28 minutes on a DC charger. Nissan says that equals around 350km of range.

The two tone copper and clean lines of the Ariya

On a wall box with three phase power you can get from 10 to 100 per cent in 3.5 hours, while a 7kWh single phase wall box will take 13.5 hours to do the same job.

So, the Ariya is a very impressive and attractive EV that comes in just the right size – considering so many people love a midsize SUV as their family car these days.

Unfortunately, we can’t answer the big question yet: what it will cost. Nissan Australia have not set a price for a car they’re not entirely sure they’re going to get – or not soon, anyway.

Just as other countries still have motor shows, they also have different attitudes to actually switching to EVs (and building the charging infrastructure they require), and Nissan HQ has declared that Ariya will be sold first in markets that make sense, those that will buy a lot of them – meaning Europe, China and the US.

The company’s local arm desperately wants the Ariya – let’s face it, it’s a lot more saleable than a Nissan Leaf in both size and looks terms – and is hopeful that it might arrive down under in 2023.

For now, though, just as we wait for another motor show, Australians will just have to be patient.