As the 19th century French novelist Jean-Baptiste Karr once wrote "plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose" usually translated as "the more things change, the more they stay the same", the same sentiment can be levelled at the car industry today.
The winds of change might be sweeping through the world’s great car makers, with the environment central to everything now in production and on the designer’s sketchpad, but on our recent first drive of the first mass produced electric car, and current European Car of the Year, the Nissan LEAF, change hasn’t made it through to the driving experience. Which is a good thing.
Within five minutes of being sat in the driving seat an overwhelming sense of familiarity sweeps over you. Strip away the futuristic dashboard display, overlook the strange little ‘gearknob’ and it’s easy to forget that working away underneath you is a very real and very different, purely electric drivetrain. The truth is when you’re sat in the LEAF you could be sat in pretty much any small family hatchback car. Drive height and visibility are familiar, there is plenty of space in the rear to seat three, and the boot, at 330 litres, isn’t taken up by masses of battery packs either.
And there are a number of very sensible reasons why Nissan has decided on the familiarity route with the LEAF. Firstly, the LEAF is the forerunner of Nissan’s next generation electric cars, so by presenting the technology in one of the world’s most popular car segments makes good financial sense. Secondly, with over $4bn invested by the Japanese carmaker into EV and battery technology already then it needs to start making money from the technology. And thirdly, the majority of motorists need to be convinced that they can make the switch to electric cars, having an alien driving experience is not going to help make the masses jump to battery power anytime soon. You can locate ev charging locations here.
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