Nissan Leaf review

As alluded to in the Overview, the cheapest Nissan Leaf is £28,495. That’s for the base-spec Shiro model, introduced in 2023 and based on the mid-spec N-Connecta, but with Nissan’s ProPilot assist pack thrown in.

As well as that you get 17in alloy wheels, LED daytime running lights, a heat pack with heated front and rear seats and heated steering wheel, a myriad of active safety systems, automatic air con, rain-sensing wipers, an 8in touchscreen, USB ports front and back, automatic high-beam headlights, intelligent cruise control, Android Auto and Apple CarPlay, plus a tech pack with front and rear parking sensors.

Next up is Acenta for another £500. Oddly the wheels get smaller - 16s this time - and a reversing camera is included.

N-Connecta costs £30,495 and adds auto climate control, 17s, and an around-view monitor with moving object detection. Tekna is the top-spec model, gaining a more advanced version of Nissan’s ProPilot system, a seven-speaker Bose sound system, part-leather seats, LED headlights and an electric parking brake. That’ll set you back £31,995.

As discussed, there’s only one powertrain now. The faster, rangier 62kWh e+ has kicked the bucket.

What about running costs?

The average cost of electricity in the UK is 24.5 pence per kilowatt-hour as things stand, so a full charge of the Leaf should set you back no more than a tenner. £10 for every 160 miles? Feel free to laugh out loud every time you pass a fuel station.

A home charge will almost always be quick enough too, even if it takes nearly eight hours on a 6.6kW AC wallbox. No one’s going trans-continental in one of these. DC fast charging is available, but the Nissan still uses the CHAdeMO plug socket. Which is like selling VHS in the era of BluRay. There are lots around, but CCS plugs have long since established themselves as the universal go-to.

Most CHAdeMOs can only offer 50kW charging too, (and the Leaf’s battery is air-cooled rather than liquid-cooled) so a 20-80 per cent charge will take around an hour. Another area where the Leaf has badly fallen behind.