Today, James and I have been driving the new 2022 Nissan Ariya. Nissan have been dragging their heels in the EV world despite being market leaders 10 years ago, by hanging on to Leaf and adding slightly bigger batteries and front and rear lifts, so it’s nice to finally see something on the road. The Ariya is an SUV, loads of space, not too much power, and quite expensive, so lets see what it’s actually like for us.
Hello and welcome to another episode and welcome to the nissan area please remember to check out our other videos and to click on the subscribe button and tap on the bell icon so you get notifications each time we upload another video the aria’s got a 63 kilowatt hour usable battery and a wltp range of 250 miles we’ve found realistically it’s more about 210
The aria is a really big car but i do like it florence said to me this morning it’s got a kind of land rover rover-esqueness to it and it has in terms of its height and size it’s got a really really nice front end and it looks kind of mean and the lights look really good on the top you’ve got a sky roof and you’ve got various options where you can just have the
Blind back and the sky roof closed and you get a nice feeling of space there’s florence alternatively you’ve got two options where you can have the sky roof all the way back or you can have it just on a vent but it’s really nice i like that disappointingly there’s no frunk and that’s something we’ve really become accustomed to and we use a lot even if we go out
For the day but especially when we go on holiday real shame the charge port is located here on the nearside front wing it’s ccs giving you up to 130 kilowatts but we’ve only seen 80 so far which is a little bit disappointing the wheels on the area look enormous but they’re actually only 19 inch but they’ve got a really big aspect ratio but that makes for a very
Smooth cushioned drive there’s a massive space inside as you can see there’s florence just in the back seat and you can see here with the rear seats folded down you’ve got a really nice big boot space and with the seats up it is a really really really big spacious car one of the things that florence really liked about the ioniq 5 was that you could walk across
From the passenger seat to the driver’s seat across the flat floor and you have that in here slightly less space but it’s a really big open space isn’t it florence yeah and you can even put that yeah you can it’s got some good storage bits and bobs so if you look here you can you can open it and in there is my phone where you’ve got wireless charging just there
You can charge it and you can put lip balm and keys in it you can put lip balm and keys in it and it’s got some lots of stuff you can it’s got bottle holders just here so we’ve got two bottles there yeah and my bottom over there and florence’s bottles in the door card and there’s a number there there’s a number there and you’ve got obviously the door card this
Side so lots of space thank you applause she’ll take you around to the back back ends back end looks pretty good my preference is the front but there’s some cars which we’ve had recently where the front end looks really good but i’ve absolutely hated the rear of the car but not the case of this i do think it looks really nice predominantly i drive the model
3 and it’s a hard ride and it’s very low um because it’s performance and it’s on 20 inch wheels this has a completely different feel entirely it’s really smooth it’s very comfortable ride and it’s quite nice i’m enjoying it i’ve got to say okay it’s a much more relaxed drive me and james have done some quite long distances in the model 3 and they’ve not been
Enjoyable but i feel like in this it would be go on then what have you got to say about the ride so we just um drive past the farm and i could smell some too that’s good florence so do you do you think this is comfortable would you be able to fall asleep in this if we went on a long drive um yes but only if it had a bed right okay so i just want to feel what
The acceleration is like from standstill and that’s my foot right down and it’s okay it’s not it had to seem to have initially a bit of a a lag but one it’s there’s almost a point where it kicks in and then it’s it’s super fast is it fun in the back daddy um it is fun in the back darling it’s very big it’s different too it’s here do you like it yeah good so
Would i have one um my initial feeling when i first saw it was no um just because of the size of it the width of it but the more i’m driving it the more i’m liking it and i think i could get used to the width and i think i would do that quite quickly i really love the feeling of space i love the comfort the boot looks like it’s a decent size for all of our
Stuff the downsides are the fact that it doesn’t have a frunk which like i said we use we use a lot um and it’s not as fast as some of the other electric cars that we’ve driven but i guess you know that would be something you could just get used to we don’t often go particularly fast with a florence in the car do we flores just made a really good point and
She’s right it she said that it’s really quiet in here and it is it’s a really calm quiet experience driving this especially in comparison to some of the other ev’s we’ve driven recently where we’ve we’ve talked a lot about the noise haven’t we from the roads but you don’t have that with this it’s very well insulated so i always get asked the question would
I swap our tesla model 3 for this and there’s certain things about it which yes i would swap it for i would miss certain things about the tesla so for the comfort the quietness the overall ride yes i would because the model 3 is is not particularly pleasant ride especially for a passenger but i’d miss the speed of the tesla florence would you swap our tesla
For this no why because they like because that i only want to test that with an opening roof like this one and it’s going to be the same so would you have one of these because we can open the roof yes okay but i only want a tesla one right you want a tesla area okay now it turns in an opening room well that’s mine and florence’s thoughts we hope you found
It interesting and we’ll see you again in another episode something i miss from a daily runner is apple carplay it’s such a useful feature but also these 360 degree cameras which are much improved over previous variants the area is big and you’d be quite within your rights to worry about these situations but no need a half decent turning circle means it’s as
Easy as our model 3 for navigating tight turns the dash layout for me is a very nice balance it’s not too imposing but covers enough detail although there are plenty of layers when you use nissan’s inbuilt system glove boxes are often poor in any car but not here this is what i consider an adequate size but for good measure nissan have popped a second one in
For you in the center the nissan pro pilot is also much improved and made much of this journey which was mainly motorway very easy i noticed a much improved lane follow assist and felt it would negotiate tighter turns much better than our old leaf and finally efficiency it’s bad in the ev world but when you consider what size this vehicle is it’s not all that
Bad charging at home we’d be paying 1.3 pence per mile if we hadn’t charged from our solar panels okay folks so that was a girl’s opinion i thought i’d give you mine so you’ve got a bit of a comparison i have just driven back from uh hinckley to burnley i’m at the dealership now and i picked it up yesterday and took it down there the whole journey i’ve done was
311.4 miles and i averaged a 3.7 miles per kilowatt hour so that’s actually not as bad as it was it started off horrifically and gradually it’s crept up and up and up and up and up if i was to compare that to a nice vehicle it’s miles ahead i mean a nice vehicle this size will probably chew through two kilowatt hours per mile or something equivalent uh so this
Is this is pretty good in comparison to that put it against something like a high end ionic and it’s it’s not so good but different vehicle and this is it’s big now let me just give you what i don’t like i don’t like suvs i don’t know why we’ve got them really they don’t offer anything more apart from a high up driving position easier access and they make you
Feel great when you’re driving them they do do that so i understand why people buy them and i don’t like the front end of this well i didn’t yesterday but now i sort of do it’s got kind of a a resemblance to boba fett’s helmet uh from the front uh but yeah it’s grown on me and not only that everybody i’ve spoken to who’s looked at the car and that’s a few people
Have all said that is a beautiful car in a beautiful color and i disagreed on both i don’t like red and i don’t like the front end uh but now i’m i’m swinging i’m swinging towards it i think if i spent a few more days with it it would uh it would change it’s typical nissan it’s built to a really high standard there’s not a creek there’s not a rattle there’s not
A rumble got a bit of hard plastic at the back on the far piece of the dashboard and the lower door cards uh where you you kick and scratch the hard plastic but apart from that everything in here is first class i believe this whole center console uh moves backwards on the next variant up um so that’s that’s a nice touch because that would give you a little bit
More space to add to the flat floor that we’ve got and the drive is absolutely sublime there’s no other word to describe it it drives first absolutely first class one of the best suvs i’ve driven the suspension is not too hard it’s not too soft the road noise is is right on i mean well there’s none of it um and just the refinement all together as a package is
Very very good so onto price this is a 63 kilowatt hour usable battery given a range i’m going to save about 210 220 which is not bad for the size of vehicle the price starts at 43 845 this has got two options on the red paint with the black roof and the sunroof that’s also an option which makes it 45070 which for me is just a bit rich a bit rich i would i
Would be looking at 39.995 i’d want to pay for this the bigger one should be 45 because i’ve also got an 87 kilowatt hour usable battery which i think should be around the 45 mark this goes up to 60 which is i think outrageous i do i don’t think anyone should be paying 60 grand for for this not at all now in my world i’m trying to be a bit more sensible i’ve
Come to the realization that i don’t need a tesla and i don’t need 300 miles of range i just it’s just not needed so why should i have a 55 grand cast out on the drive so that’s going um we’ve ordered an mg4 uh and then this weekend kate sat there and said well this is really nice i quite like it so who knows what’s going to happen who knows anyway folks i’m
Not going to waffle on anymore i hope you’ve enjoyed it i genuinely have really really enjoyed it if even if you’re not going to buy one nip into the dealers and drive it because it’s a very very nice well put together bit of kit and i think you’ll be impressed so thanks for watching please remember to like share and subscribe and follow us on twitter at kate
Phantom and we’ll see you soon in another episode so bye for now you
Transcribed from video
Nissan Ariya Review By James and Kate – The EV Team
