As some of you may know I have quite the reputation for being extremely hostile towards eco-friendly cars. It is not due to a hatred of the polar bear but because they offer very little in turn for the compromises you make. The quality of the materials have been downgraded to save weight, the power levels bound in electronic shackles to save fuel, they are made numb and unpalatable all in the name of equaling the MPG of a diesel Golf. Owning a car is a convenience, I don’t want to be nagged by the communist display that the way I’m driving has cause 32 seal deaths. The only way manufacturers will get me and many others to save the environment is by producing a car that is as at least as good as a conventional petrol engine and cost roughly the same. I can’t review a car and make an exception for faults just because its a Hybrid in the same way I can’t make exceptions just because a car is blue. They all have four wheels and a motor so are dealt with in equal measure.
Nissan has recently produced Europe’s first all-electric family car named the LEAF. I have no doubt you will have heard of it as the pro’s and con’s of ownership have been batted about the media a fair bit of late. Regardless of various facts and figures the key thing is that it is being aimed at everyone meaning that it has the opportunity to make or break the electric car through its first impressions. If its great then people who would have bought a Focus for example could see that traveling 100 miles for less than £3 is worth the investment. However if it turns out to be a reincarnated Micra with the power of a pencil sharpener then that will become peoples first thoughts on future EV’s. Sallyann Tanner EVRM at Westover Nissan Bournemouth has very kindly provided us the opportunity to test one of the first LEAF’s in the UK to see if an electric car could ever be a viable alternative to combustion.
Seeing the LEAF for the first time did make me raise an eyebrow. The comically bulging headlights and protruding rear end don’t necessarily make a feast for the eye yet viewing them as a whole, and not just in isolation, the car could appeal to those wanting a quirky take on the conventional. Stepping inside the car is much like visiting Switzerland in that everything is very cleanly designed and ergonomic. You would have a hard job spotting astraight edge as even the dashboard begins to curve long before the instrument panel. The seating is fantastically comfortable and the entire cabin with its aluminum buttons, futuristic LCD screens as well as large quantities of space gives it a very premium feel. The boot is exactly the size you would come to expect from a hatchback of this size meaning good news for shopping mums.
Starting the LEAF has more in common with turning on a digital camera than a car; you push a button, a series of tones are heard followed by the screens illuminating, and then you are ready to take a picture or in this case drive. There is 0% noise and had I closed my eyes I would not have believed for a second the car had been started. The dashboard offers an array of telemetry from everything battery related to a very subtle “tree” that grows in the corner of the display to reflect how environmentally friendly your driving is. That is the key word there “subtle” as unlike other eco-worriers the LEAF does not brand you as a barbarian for turning the air-conditioning on, it just behaves in a very unintrusive manner and calculates how much battery it is using. Driving this car is exactly the same as driving an automatic, just take your foot off the break and away you go. In motion it is as silent as it is when stationary due in part to its exterior architecture. Nissan have gone to extreme lengths to eliminate any sound that could irritate passengers such as wind against the mirrors, all of a sudden those sculpted lights make sense. It is like driving a church but with the wooden pews replaced with some of the most comfortable seats in the class. The car corners surprisingly well giving the driver good turn-in thanks to a low centre of mass and firm but not uncomfortable suspension. The steering is light to cater for the vast variety of customers who will purchase a LEAF but it is far from unresponsive. Yet the best thing about driving this car is the way it accelerates. The electric motor provides the cars torque instantly making it feel as if you are being pushed along by a wave of air. The sensation is almost indescribable as there is literally no other car on sale today that can achieve this feeling of weightless velocity. Using the resistance in the electric motor to charge the battery whilst coasting or breaking may not be anything new for Hybrids but in an EV it is a tool that if use well could extend the range drastically. With all these hugely positive traits “range anxiety” soon dissipates in the LEAF.
Getting down to the nitty-gritty the Nissan LEAF will, according to Nissan, cover 100 miles, though in real world conditions that only drops to a very respectable 96. Charging the cars 48 laminated lithium-ion batteries from empty with a standard 240 Volt socket in your house will take around 10/12 hours. However Nissan can arrange for a 16amp Home Charger can be fitted and this will charge it in 8 hours! There will be ‘Rapid chargers’ appearing all around the country at commercial sites and this will allow an 80% charge in 30 minutes. The Rapid Charging units will be available at all the 25 EV Nissan Dealerships and will be rolled out to others dealerships in the future. Large stores such as John Lewis, Sainsbury’s, Marks and Spencer have also indicated that Rapid Chargers will be installed outside their stores soon.
The cost of buying the car is a top-spec Focus rivaling £26,990 with a government grant of £5,000. However 60,000 miles of driving according to our maths would save you a further £5,000 in fuel bills. The purpose built lithium-ion batteries are also a breakthrough in battery tech as Nissan say that 5 years of use will only result in the pack being at 80% health. Servicing cost are also much lower than those of combustion engined cars due to the lack of moving parts.
SO whats the verdict? Well being absolutely honest, before I tested the LEAF I was extremely skeptical about electric cars and saw them as an environmentalists hobby. I wasn’t expecting the Nissan to change that but due to this car being the opposite of every other eco-wagon and more like a normal car, I can now see that in the coming years electric will become just as prominent as petrol and diesel. I am completely sold on the LEAF and urge each and everyone of you to try it for yourself because no matter what you read here you will still have doubts until you experience it for yourself. A very interesting claim from Nissan saying that so far everyone who has taken a test drive has purchased a car. over 30,000 pre-orders can’t be far wrong.
Nissan are well known for making small city cars, the rather tame 350Z and one other… The Skyline. A name that petrol heads the world over will never forget, particularly the early 90’s incarnations. You see back then the UK was in recession and so nobody really had that much money, UK output was at an all-time low and so the industry started to collapse. Much like today performance cars were something envied to the highest degree, however with no money Porsche weren’t just going to hand the keys over. Enter the Nissan Skyline R32, a car that gave a new meaning to bangs for your bucks! The car itself was cheap as chips and with a GT-R variant that offered 2.6 litres and AWD; it soon became an icon to the public. Here for what little money you have, you could get Ferrari beating performance. 320BHP under your right foot was more than enough to leave all your problems in a cloud of tyre smoke.
2008 brought the recession in another form, the dreaded credit crunch. Thanks to banks giving loans to paperboys so they could buy a Lamborghini, we are all in a situation where nobody has very much money once again. For 6 years it was absent from our roads, but now it’s back in the form of its most legendary model. The recession rupturing Nissan GT-R.
This all new car is mind bending in every aspect, for £55,500 you can get a car that laps the Nüremburgring faster than a £129,000 Porsche 911 GT2. The GT-R is nearly one third of the price yet manages to top trump the German in every conceivable way. In fact it will completely annihilate almost any super car you put in its path. Ferrari F430, Lamborghini Gallardo, Porsche 911’s are allbanished by this cars breath-taking performance figures. Its twin-turbo 3.8 litre engine produces 485BHP and in conjunction with a super-fast DCG gearbox/AWD it will do 0-60 in 3.6 seconds. The car will not yield until it reaches its top speed of 191MPH.
The car may have a rock hard ride but this is a small price to pay for the ability to change direction so quickly. The AWD system is balanced perfectly to cancel out under steer when driving in a lively manner; the result is that any input into the wheel is immediately translated into action. The seats have to be secured to the chassis of the car with high density bolts as the G-force generated by this could rip the standard components clean out of their fittings. Nitrogen fills the tyres as air was deemed “too unstable”. That is almost beyond comprehension, the air we breathe too unstable!
Looking past the crazy numbers sits a rather well equipped four-seat coupe. The boot could fit an elephant calf and the rear seats actually have the capacity to seat two adults. The GT-R is a large car but it is by no means trickier to park than its rivals as vision from the cockpit is ample. So there you have it, a true David among Goliaths. Anybody wishing they hadn’t just ordered that new Lamborghini?
The wind in your hair experience is exactly what a drop-top is all about. The sky, the car and you in-between the two having the time of your life on a beautiful summers day. This highly desired formula for this mode of transportation is one that has created an extremely competitive market within the industry, and so manufacturers have really had to raise the bar with their next generation models. So what has Nissan brought to the fray?
This is the Nissan 370Z Roadster, a car designed to take on the likes of the BMW Z4, a task nobody envies. But less about other cars, let’s focus on what the 370Z can offer. The 370Z replaces the aging 350Z that as a coupe was a fantastic car, but as a roadster was as floppy as a damp cloth. This car however is in a completely different league. Let’s start with those swooping lines that make up that fantastic bodywork. I must say when I first saw the car I though its design was questionable, those lights far too ostentatious for my liking and don’t even get me started on the aerial that pokes out of the boot like an out of place hair. But then I took a step back, yes some of the design elements in solitude are questionable,nevertheless the car as an entirety is unquestionably gorgeous. The lines that run down the body work are as elegant as bird flight and the subtle budge in the bonnet is the perfect understatement that just hints at what power is being contained beneath. It’s not a subtle car but it is acceptable in its own way.
Cocooned within this sleek profile is the cars 3.7 litre V6 that produces 332 wild horses that are all ready to play. Thanks to this the car will accelerate from 0-62MPH in a g-force inducing 5.5 seconds and won’t stop until it get to 155MPH. This means that the car has plenty of grunt for those B-road thrashes that you crave. Working in harmony with this fantastic engine on the GT model is the ingenious Synchro Rev system built into the gearbox. Now for those of us who don’t speak Nissan technology centre, this clever system basically matches the revs to what gear you change into. For example if I’m in forth and change to third that car will up the revs seamlessly in the time it takes for me to change gear. This makes for the perfect gear change every time, no heal and no malarkey, just the inability to mess up changes. It’s a very simple idea but the best ones often are!
Now the chaise of this car has been purpose built for the roadster as opposed to just taking the once from the coupe and cutting its head off. This means that unlike the 350Z, the 370 is the perfect match for its hardtop counterpart. This makes for one of the most tantalizing driving experiences on offer today as this car takes every one of your nerve endings and plugs them into the mains. It’s just so well balanced, and with that magnificent gearbox it’s effortless. The short wheelbase means that the tail can be let off the leash at your command making for some epic moments behind the wheel. Well done Nissan, top of the class… That is until you stop being a hooligan and have to drive it home. The cars handling may well be fantastic thanks to its taught suspension, but it’s that very same suspension that causes your vertebra to disintegrate like Lego in an earthquake. It seems like the 370Z can magnified even the smallest of potholes into something that would register on the Richter scale. Occupants are jiggled around like a basket of fruit until they reach their destination, and that’s a great shame.
Unfortunately the shortcomings continue whilst you are inside the 370Z for extended periods of time. Although the interior isfantastically designed using complimenting shapes and materials, it is very much style over functionality. The buttons on the steering wheel look like something from Star Trek but I don’t recall Captain Kirk accidently hitting the skip track button whilst attempting to navigate a junction. Also the slender rear window may do wonders for the cars overall appearance, but it certainly makes life hell whilst trying to park or even just use it as a window to view the traffic behind you. I would love to stop ranting now because I love this car, but I can’t because the cars biggest downfall is the thing that gives it the roadster name. The roof whilst neatly stowed away causes no bother; though the process of it folding into its compartment is one that is compliment by the soundtrack of a car compactor. The clunks and crunches at one point led to believe something was broken, but apparently not. Air flow is my final issue with this car as having a convocation in the cabin at anything over 40MPH with the top down is impossible without the aid of a megaphone.
On paper this car is head shoulders knees and toes above many of its competitors and as a driving sensation within its class, it is untouchable. However we don’t live in a paper world and in reality I feel this car would become tedious to live with. All those little niggles may not be worth it in order to enjoy your country drive on the weekends. And that’s rather unfortunate.
