New Leaf to be built on Wearside after £36m investment

NISSAN is refreshing a flagship electric vehicle – and confirmed its North-East plant will oversee production.

Schillaci said while many of Nissan’s competitors only focused on one of these pillars, the new Nissan Leaf allowed their customers to experience intelligent driving and power integration all at once. Nissan President Hiroto Saikawa said a second-generation Leaf with a 60-kWh battery could have a range exceeding 300 miles, the Financial Times reported.

Powering the new Leaf is a 148bhp electric motor and a lithium-ion battery pack, which give the vehicle an official range of 235 miles.

Nissan on Wednesday launched a revamped version of its Leaf EV hatchback model, going head-to-head with Tesla Inc’s Model 3 and hoping to blunt criticism of limited driving ranges undermining EVs’ mass-market appeal.

“This new Leaf is not just the latest symbol of Nissan’s global leadership in the EV segment”, Muñoz remarked. But it also can steer as needed to keep the Leaf in its lane, as long as the highway has visible lane markers. A low base price could help chew into Model 3 demand, particularly among buyers entering the electric-car market for the first time. The electric motor found in the 2018 Nissan Leaf is actually identical to the outgoing model, but it does feature a more-powerful inverter. As with most electric cars the Leaf if capable of slowing, and even stopping, without the driver having to touch the brake pedal. The range also depends on what other features are being used such as the car’s heater.

The Nissan Leaf will come with ProPilot Assist and ProPilot Park. With the 2018 Leaf scheduled to hit dealerships early next year, we’ll know soon enough.

Unless you have a killer commute or plan on taking your EV on lengthy road trips, the Leaf with its standard battery pack should fit your driving requirements.

“I’m not at all anxious about cross-shopping” the Leaf and Tesla’s Model 3, Schillaci said in an interview. The vehicle can be operated in one-pedal mode that automatically slows or stops the auto when the driver eases up on the accelerator, but it still includes a brake pedal, especially for emergencies.

The electric powertrain of the Leaf has also been updated to offer more power and range. That is in large part thanks to a new 40kWh lithium-ion battery, replacing a 24kWh battery in the old model.

The firm said the new Leaf would go on sale in Japan next month and was ‘slated for deliveries in January 2018 in the U.S., Canada and Europe’.