In-Depth Review of the Nissan Ariya 2022: Exterior, Interior and the Driving Experience.

Nissan Ariya Review: Nissan Ariya a game changer?

In-Depth Review of the Nissan Ariya

The Nissan Ariya is an extraordinary looking and exceptional electric family SUV, yet its boot is a piece on the little side and different EVs have better charging capacities.

The new Nissan Ariya, and I can already tell you so far, is a huge game changer for Nissan as a brand. It will shake up also the differences between, let’s say, a normal volume brand and the premium brand, but can it be a game changer for the whole EV market? The Nissan Ariya shows this closed EV front grille, a Japanese styling pattern here a little bit hidden behind with slim daytime running lights.

Nissan Ariya Colors blue, Green copper

Full led lamps are here the dark blue colour we also have a dark green colour for you and a copper colour these are the colours we have seen so far. Still, there will be more of a compact SUV or crossover as you want to take it.

The interesting thing with Nissan is they dominated the EV market with a Nissan leaf in the very early stages, then came tesla, and then all the other manufacturers. Can they now strike back with the aria? Well, it might have a big chance for that.

Nissan Ariya Wheels and Design

Why, let’s take a closer look here at 19-inch wheels. These are the ones with the aerodynamic design, more balloons tires definitely, but better riding comfort. However, you can get 20-inch wheels, not just more prominent styling. Then you can see here the wheel arches are painted in black, so this also gives a sporty look and then there’s a very, very sleek side profile right here.

Nissan Ariya Battery sizes kWh

So more of a crossover look, and they’ve put the batteries in the lower end of the vehicle. We can also see a cutaway model with two battery sizes, either 63-kilowatt hours net or 87-kilowatt hours net. We have the one with a small battery here today by the late stage. We also drive the bigger battery to subscribe if you haven’t done so far, and the range will be very interesting.

Length and Rear

Interesting design lines and the overall length is 4 meters 60 that, is 181 inches. As for the rear design, the modern and sleek light strip goes all the way across the vehicle, and on the technology side, it’s very interesting.

FWD vs AWD

Frontal drive model, you have the all-wheel drive model than with the two electric motors and the acceleration difference is 7.5 seconds to 6 seconds for the overdrive model 0-100 kilometres or 62 miles they plan to do an even quicker performance model, but that is pushed away for now because they say there wouldn’t be a huge demand for that.

Top speed Vmax

Top speed is also different. The front-wheel drive model is 160 kilometres an hour or 100 miles an hour, or then the oil drive model is 200 kilometres an hour or 125 miles.

Suspension and Rear Axle

There’s one base suspension across all models, with no adaptive suspension. However, there’s a multi-link rear axle, which is a more elaborate rear axle. Let’s see in the driving part how it plays out for comfort.

AC / DC Recharging with charging Curve

Recharging here, what is very special for this midsize segment here you will have a 22-kilowatt three-phase charging for ac that’s great and one or 30 kilowatts dc charging. Still, with a good charging curve, we can also show that charging curve, and that means that from 10 to 80 states of charge, the big battery you’ll charge in about 35 minutes.

Is there a Frunk?

Should you wonder about the trunk? No, there is none, just equipment underneath fluids and so on, so no trunk whatsoever.

Ariya naming Background Aryan?

Wonder about the name, by the way, Arya the thing is it’s supposed to be you know derived from you know Sanskrit word of noble and the problem is for a german market when you say Arya in german that’s the exact pronunciation of Aryan, and that is, of course, another good combination for a car on the german market.

So the germans then in their market try to say rather an area, so it’s differently pronounced, and there’s no mismatching with that, but overall, I think as for name pick maybe not the best idea if it in some way can be you know connoted to Aryan.

Nissan Ariya Key Fob and Doors

Moving towards the interior, that key fob is slim and light and high quality and no high gloss piano lacquer awesome then the door closing sound very good low frequency sonorous I like that and look at that the interior materials here the doors this then the Alcantara equipment the microfiber equipment you have it here at the inside doors either here like this in bright or in plain black is also available.

A soft touch above that like here good quality as well then this is a little bit harder than here you have a soft leather red again and also the quality of the buttons right here everything is nice and even more so look at that when I lower the window now a little bit for the front. The rear is dual insulation glass in the front and even at the rear doors.

Lounge interior with microfibre seats

Look at this lounge interior. It looks amazing. Again you can also have this seat in complete black and a black microfiber here with a beautiful or bright, maybe ivory colour microphone. What would you call it leatherette outside, so this seat is animal-free. A beautiful combination of a blue exterior and this bright interior is amazing.

So this would be my favourite setup. The base seat would be that you have fabric where you have microfiber here and leather outside, then towards middle or high trim. Sadly, the highest is an animal skin pack they still offer in 2022 in an electric vehicle, but most vehicles will be sold like this with a bright or black microfiber.

Also in use, it’s available. The steering wheel is also animal skin wrap at this moment, but they’re also working at alternatives the screens two times 12.3 inches more than the horizontal setup. Are they of any use? We’ll find out very soon seating position higher than you might expect from the outside looks so that it might look like a crossover on the outside.

Seating position

But seating position here select your controls second position wise it’s more an SUV indeed and for me with one meter 89 or six for two, there’s just some headroom left and this the panoramic roof here. Also, the head-up display is standard for all malt except the base model.

Panoramic Roof

The interesting thing is here, this is a panoramic groove with a shade that’s better, for example, than with the teslas where it gets hot, and you can also open that, so most of these modern EVs have fixed panoramic grooves and maybe sometimes even on the cover. Here they have both you can open it. You do have a cover, and it’s quite substantial that opening as well, so that’s nice that they have that, and it feels very elaborated. So far, comfortable seating. We’ll see how it turns out while driving this, by the way.

BOSE Sound System

It also equipped you with the optional browser sound system, and why don’t we test the sound directly right here right now? Let’s see about that, so this isn’t it. That’s a great surround sound, right? So I can really say this is a premium vehicle, and it does compete without the BMW Mercedes, no doubt

Moving lower middle console

Look at this lower middle console. It will have special two special features coming up very soon here. First of all, this is shifting lever drive mode reverse park and then here is like this matte wood nice and adaptive cup holders then you have these capacitive buttons.

But at least not on high gloss black, so for the driving modes for the e-pedal how this will affect driving, we will soon see, and this is one of the special features soon coming. Then soft touch leather right here for the armrest lifting it you know it’s well attached and then is this an inductive charging pad right here another storage area and now comes the first special feature.

We can move this whole middle console. We can move it back to have a little more space in the front if it’s that useful. I don’t know. It’s a cool feature, and it reveals here in the front that we have a connector box USB, a USB, either wired or wireless connector for the apple car play or android out. You can choose that, actually, but most of the time, you can control these things better; you will probably move it forward again.

Electric Cubby Hole

The second control so they do give you some haptic feedback when you press them. When you press open here, look at what happens. Then we have another. Why would you do that electric I don’t know, but you can also hold it in between like this. That’s funny. Then there’s a manual opening, or you leave it open like this.

You can always, you know, put it back and out again. This is maybe showing off to your friends. Also, what would you put in there and the contrast electric versus manual opening this middle one over the classic glove box? I think that’s better when you have the simple and plain menu control because your knees touched it right and left. Then you have to close it first, and that takes a while.

So on, and not the ideal solution. I think this is just easier, and also when you think about, you know, maybe you’re closing it. You’re not watching, and like you know, some on the passenger side, maybe the kids play around with it, and then they hold this. That’s not that pleasant indeed. It does not stop, so you might say that’s a dumb thing to do, the dumb thing to test actually, but you remember when you know when someone has kids, this will happen at some point, and so not a fan of it looks cool but not a fan of the electric solution here.

Interior Overview

Interior overview two times twelve point three-inch horizontal stress soon models to the screens here once again the soft touch microfiber beautiful and bright would be black in the black styling. Then the copper accentuation goes all the way horizontal with these air vents, and they thought about the manual volume jog that’s great to have and also for muting like this that’s good.

Wooden capacitive climate controls

The climate controls are capacitive. They do give some feedback, but the beautiful matte wood area where this is very, very cool, so Yes, I wouldn’t say I like capacitive bs buttons hashtag capacitive bs; however, the integration is pretty cool, you know, when you shut down the vehicle like this, it goes almost invisible and then when you start up the vehicle here they are backlit.

So it is beautifully done, no doubt that you can also more or less control it while driving. It’s a little bit complicated with this; you know you must press it. I mean, you don’t have to press that hard. Hence, a slight press is enough. It’s not the most intuitive let’s say it’s not the best good to control while driving.

Adjustable Steering

It looks amazing that the steering wheel has electric control in and out and up and down. Here is a well-equipped vehicle, and the strange thing is it goes extremely high, higher than anyone would need it to, but it doesn’t go that low, so for me, it shouldn’t go that high, but it should go a little bit lower actually but that way it’s still fine, and on the scene wheel it’s a mix of capacitive buttons and real jogs for example so overall fine also to control the digital instruments and stuff you can change.

Digital Instruments

You can have a bigger digital speed view in there, or you can then, for example, have some information like this. You can also have the gps or even the map right here; certainly, when I activate the apple car play map, the gps view here and the instruments disappears. Let’s see if I go back to the internal car map; it doesn’t reappear, so maybe you must cancel the root guidance here first. Here we go, so now when I’ve cancelled the apple car play guidance, then the map is back here again.

Head-up-Display (HUD) Infotainment System Details

A head-up display is also standard for most model trims, with some basic gps guidance. The screen here with the carplay integration or then also android auto if you’re using the android phones and you can always dim the screen here with a hotkey.

Then you can also go plus minus change the brightness of that and always have a hotkey here for the camera system the resolution could be a little bit better this fake drone from above the main menu looks like this that one doesn’t look that modern so it could look more modern the responsiveness is better than we know.

So far, we’re around the Stockholm area today, so best greetings to all our Swedish fans. Most of the time, you will probably use android auto or apple car play. They say they also have a dynamic route planning for the charging stations, but it does not do the preheating. You either have to floor it out then or do the preheating manually.

So this is one thing to consider, and you can also search for charging stations nearby. They cooperate with plug surfing for that; however, I think the infotainment system could be a little bit more modern from its looks, but I think you get along, and most of us are using apple car play and without in our vehicles anyway nowadays.

Heated and Coole Microfibre Seats

The lower corner is a nice luxury and features a heated steering wheel or automatic function. The same also goes for automatic function for the heated and cooled seats or manually in three levels, and that’s such a rare combination here microfiber seats in combination with cooling awesome ready for summer.

Digital back Mirror Function

The back mirror is either classic or digital like this. In this case, it might make sense because the view to the rear is not the best where the normal mirror here. You actually do see better, and then you can also adjust it, for example, move the whole image up or down depending upon what you want to see and also if you have, for example, the back-loaded all the way, you know, cross through the window you still can see through the rear by this digital solution.

Rear Seats

The rear area is even more beautiful in that bright microfiber styling and lets me first show you here when I’m behind the driver’s seat; there is ample legroom that’s awesome. An interesting fabric alike cover of the rear seat.

This is a premium material use and animal free besides the steering wheel; it’s awesome that they’re using the EV platform. There’s no middle tunnel whatsoever. Also real buttons here for the seat heating in the rear USB-C USB hr and the mat wood. This is one of the best EV interiors I’ve seen from all EVs.

So I’m amazed by that headphones. Wise it works. It’s not the highest vehicle, but it works for four looking for five. It works for five tall adults, maybe not the most amber headroom in the rear, but it does work for five tall adults.

Then Isofix at the outside seats each it’s a comfortable seating position once again also the great material quality is also with this perforation that it’s more breathable. In the middle part, you can fold down the armrest, and these couples are not adaptive, but they’re quite deep, so they should hold most bottles tight; I’m very impressed by this interior.

Trunk / Boot with length and Width

Trunk or boot area 470 litres for the front wheel drive 415 for the overdrive that is 17 versus 15 cubic feet the width here easily a little bit more than a meter or 40 inches even so that’s quite good the length a little bit less than that 95 centimetres or see it right here on 37 inches the height here is about 65 centimetres or 26 inches unless you use a little bit more of that lower space.

Where you could store cable right here, you can put this on your upright as a splitter, but you can also have cables here right and also on the left side, so they thought about enough space for different charging cables even if you do fold the seats from the rear seating area there’s no possibility to do it from the trunk but the overall length in here maximum length is one about 180 or 70 71 inches.

Nissan Ariya FWD Acceleration

The Nissan aria and go to the sports mode and show you the first acceleration with the front-wheel drive model. Let’s go, but that was zero to 80 kilometres an hour. Now I have to reduce the speed, and I’ll set the steering wheel.

So that I can drive better., I have set the scenery so that you can see the speed better from that camera angle. You know it was substantially quick. You maybe heard it. Also, I had some wheel spin in the front, thinking that the front-wheel drive model could happen, although it was drying now.

So much power here with the electric vehicles, and when you’ve just the front axle, actually than with the electric vehicles, the rear wheel drive is to be better because the car accelerates the weight shifts to the back and also for the turning circle rear wheel drive is usually better well. Still, you can also get the overdrive model and then it’s also 1.5 seconds quicker in the acceleration figure, and you can also use torque vectoring.

So it will have more agility than in the corners; however, the front drive is enough for most situations, and you don’t always need to accelerate that hard. The acceleration itself is sufficient as we’ve seen so far, well after this harsh acceleration, we also Recep the trip meter, and then we can also tell you something later on about the overall consumption, a realistic one when we drive in a rather normal way, let’s take it that way.

Agility vs Comfort

A low centre of gravity battery is in the centre that’s usual with these events, giving us a lot of agility, so it is quite high from a seating position, but it fits in quite sporty while driving. That’s something we know from these EVs. The steering is pretty light here in these low-degree angles and then gets harder to the sides.

So overall not too bad and gives you a good vehicle feeding. The driving modes here are in the sports mode; you have more throttle input in the standard model. It’s a little bit drawn back, and in the eco mode, then the throttle pedal is reduced. As for the intake, it won’t make the biggest difference, and when you use the pin-down, it always goes fast, but of course, you could switch it a little bit.

Recuperation Modes with E-pedal

Most of the time, people will probably stay in the standard mode between the d and the b mode here with the shifting lever. Let’s see the difference. When I’m in d mode, it does some healing. That’s a funny motorcycle, and when you put it to the b mode, let’s see, it’s not a significant difference. It does recuperate a little bit demo than a little bit less.

so that is, let’s say a small step a bigger step indeed is this e pedal you press this, and then you have significant recovery so if you rather want one pedal driving feeling like now then you’re going with the e pedal mode let’s see if e pedal and d or b in combination makes any difference.

so here now e pedal hard recuperation b mode that’s probably the maximum then it doesn’t make any difference anymore, so it seems that they have made it like d b e pedal as you know from the recuperation strength of all.

Heated Windscreen

First impression likeable driving situation you have a nice panoramic front windscreen they are using for the heated windscreens these fine heating lines to me that’s not the best I rather prefer these heating foils they are quite effective yes and especially when you think about here in the country like Sweden we had these Japanese style background well within Sweden.

So it was a little bit confusing there, maybe, however, I always see especially against white clouds than in the sky, so I always see it. Some don’t see these heating lines; I always see it, and to me, it’s annoying; some agree. Some say I don’t see it anyway. What about you tell me in the comments? I’m not sure if you can also get it without a heated windscreen, but most Swedes, of course, will go for the heated windscreen makes sense.

User Interface While Driving

Controlling the car while driving here with the heated heating control is okay. You know it’s okay, but a turning dial would still be better. It looks awesome. It feels great but is not the best solution. You don’t have to press that hard, but controlling it while driving it’s you know you, you also don’t know like oh what am I hitting, and where I’m hitting it, so you tend to look at it, and the moment you look at it, it’s of course always a little bit distracting.

Steering Feel

Steering feel, by the way, also switches from the driving mode standard mode is light, and in the sport mode, it gives you a little bit more feedback, so we can also adjust it.

Suspension Verdict

The suspension, you remember we have one standard suspension and multi-link rear axle so far so good when we had some bumps in the road was no problem, especially here with the 19-inch wheels we have some more dampening from the tire.

So when you go for the 20-inch wheels, you will lose some comfort and gain visuals. So yes, the car does look better with a 20-inch. It is always some trade-off. I think it would still work, but the question is, what is more, important to you that the ride is a little bit softer or that you have a cooler look than the wheels? You can decide that for yourself most of the time. You’re driving in the car, right,

so maybe then the driving comfort thing will be more important to you. It looks better. It’s always a question of that. I like the panoramic roof that we can also open. We have the shade when it gets too hot most of the time, not a big problem in Sweden here, but of course, when you live in the u.s state as you know, texas on something Arizona then you will have a problem with these roofs that do not have a cover.

Noise Insulation

Quicker road, and we have reasonable acceleration. It’s also very well insulated here now, 70 kilometres an hour. It’s very silent in here. It’s a very relaxing ride, you know. With its suspension, noise insulation, and soft steering, everything works together well.

So I was initially sceptical about how we didn’t hear from Nissan for some time about the new Qashqai. Of course, the kishka is always a very relevant car. Yes, then it was a new juke at some point, but there you know, there wasn’t much fuss about, you know, about Nissan, and now they’re back with the area here, and they are back indeed, so really stepping up the level from the leaf, and they have a very serious competitor here.

Nissan Ariya vs Competitor Comparison

If you think about the main competitors, VW id4 tesla model y ford mustang mac e Volvo xc40 or c40 a little bit smaller, of course, ionic 5 KIA ev6. Hence, Skoda, any Audi q4 each and many competitors here. They’re all in the same segments in the same pricing power battery here, they have a little bit bigger battery than the competition, and indeed that pays off. They also move this car towards the premium segment with all the materials.

know stuff here with the microfiber stepping up the game, the lower armrest here is a little bit low like the inside of the doors I I’m not sure like should I put my arm here very low or while I put it like here like yo what’s up styling that’s the bright one armour is but the left ones not that suitable, especially in combination at the steering wheel doesn’t go that low

So that’s something I do realize here. Then there’s this one hard part, you know, below the Alcantara that you hit with your arm, so that’s one hit and miss. Hence, one of the few deals I’ve discovered now while driving that could be made better but there’s.so many things that are so well executed here and well exteriorized it’s always a personal preference. Still, many vehicles look similar, especially if you compare this with the id4 or something from the interior.

It’s great to build quality. The software is maybe not the best modern but also not worse than the competition and better than some of the competitors everything is well used. You can always use the apple car play android auto integration for the interior execution look and feel. It’s nice to use the interface. At least we also have the manual volume knob.

So on and we have these backlit capacitive buttons that are also better than most of the competitors, and also the driving feeling is both comfortable and sporty so in no way would it be behind the competitors and in a lot of ways even be you know in front of them.

so far in this segment here my favourites were the ford mastering machine the Kia ev6 and ionic 5 of course together along with that. Still, I found the ev6 a bit better, and I like the Volvo xc40 or c40. The only thing is that their range is a little bit behind the competition, and this Nissan area here can easily match that.

So I can always tell you right now from driving also now this can surely be one of the top picks in that, let’s say at this moment, rather standard EV segment. Of course, it comes at the cost of that the Nissan area is not a cheap Nissan not a very affordable Nissan it more has the same price than also the premium competition but the price especially if you compare the competitors there I just mentioned is indeed justified, so that’s perfect.

Assistance Systems

About the assistant systems, we can set on the steering wheel here, cruise control change and set the speed why is that keeping it let’s see the distance the counters of us here we go there we go there’s the active cruise control the other one was the speed limiter.

So now setting the speed, let’s see about the active lane keeping assist green steering wheel symbol how smooth is it very smooth look at that like not a harsh steering reaction everything very smooth that’s pretty good then we have the blind spot motor there’s a red triangle in the side mirrors each also reacting very efficiently very nicely yeah there we go so assistant zip supplies this car is checking all boxes indeed. We have a very good and comfortable experience, Cornelius.

Passenger Driving Experience

Yes, he’s already sleeping. I think that’s a good sign, no, I’m listening to what you are telling ah, closing his eyes and listening that’s interesting.

So what did I say I like this car. He likes it, so for as a passenger, relaxing yeah g-forces insulation yeah that’s always a good sign you know when your passenger is relaxed, it shows that the insulation is good that not so many GeForce is applied of course there’s always a thing about learning drive is that you don’t have harsh acceleration and harsh recuperation on the passenger.

So you’d rather try to be smooth with your pedal, especially when in this e-pedal or one-pedal driving mode. Then, of course, it plays a major role that you can control it smoothly. Other than that, you can, of course, also deactivate the e-pedal mode, and then rather than do the recovery with the brake pedal, it will do the same healing. It’s just a different method of doing .

There’s are we on the bus lane, right all Swedish fans probably said, that’s a fail it looked like I would have um I need to go on on the very right lane, but that’s by ah it’s buzzing taxi right yeah we have do we have it in Germany sometimes not that frequently but sometimes in need.

So we’re getting off the motorway now here in Sweden. We can’t drive that fast on the motorway anyway. We have to wait for a german high-speed motorway test to test more motorways. Now I had more towards some city traffic.

First Energy Consumption Test

The consumption figure, so here we go, and we’ve been doing some nice cruising now on the motorway, and that is some 15-kilowatt hours on one-kilometre average that’s indeed very, very good, so we’ll drive even further. Then we’ll tell you also later on the figure while it is in 100 miles and what this would mean as a con size range in kilometres and miles here for the front wheel drive plus small battery remember you can go front wheel drive big battery and all-wheel drive big battery.

So these combinations are available initially. They thought about also combining the um the all we drive with the small battery. They got rid of that initially. What is going on there? Not sure if you can see that on camera must have hit something like a side pole or something; I haven’t seen it.

One of you sometimes know strange things happen with cars, and you know, like is the driver not seeing that and why don’t they stop and then yeah but sometimes people are also driving with open hatches. You feel like you guys see that you’re driving open edge. That’s what happens from time to time. So far, very, very efficient result.

KWh / 100 km and Real World Range

We will drive even further now, and I’m looking forward to the final consumption result. Still, as for the first estimations, it seems it also takes the efficiency box. Then we can say this is one of the best tv pics. This is one of the best EV picks, but what about the final results? Let’s take a look.

Well, we did have some downhill. Still, then we also went up here again but look at that 13-kilowatt hour on 100 kilometres that’s 20-kilowatt hours on 100 miles that’s sensational super efficient okay ideal conditions, best temperatures for the batteries very low-speed limits smooth driving constant speed maybe a little bit of topography change here and there.

So most ideal situations for good energy consumption; however still this is so efficient at this moment here under these ideal conditions, this would be more than 450 kilometres or almost 300 miles for the small battery, and for the big battery, the same consumption would even mean that you can score some 400 miles or more than 650 kilometres that’s one of the best results ever for an electric vehicle now you check out the big comparison EV episode or also one of the main competitors the KIA ev6 directly.

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