Why we’re running it: It took Nissan 11 years to give us its second EV. Was it worth the wait?
Month 4 - Month 3 - Month 2 - Month 1 - Specs
Life with a Nissan Ariya: Month 4
Want to use the Nissan app? You'll need to pay for the pleasure... - 21 February
As a digital native, I find smartphone apps largely intuitive. But not the Ariya’s. Nissan wants to charge me £2 per month to remotely check the state of charge of my battery. But I discovered that I can ask Siri, theoretically bypassing this fee. When I asked, he obediently responded with 66% – which was wrong by about 40%.
Mileage: 11,074
We chicken out of taking our EV up north – but its PHEV substitute isn’t much better - 14 February
In last week's issue, you might have read a review of the latest Porsche Cayenne E-Hybrid Coupé.
The real anoraks among you may remember that it was shown in picturesque Northumberland, with the sky's palette doing a remarkable impression of a golden retriever.
That test location was quite far away for this latte-sipping, media-bubble-inhabiting Londoner, so I decided that something powered by petrol would be preferable to my Ariya, as the drive is essentially all the way up the Al, and at motorway speeds the EV is still managing fewer than 150 miles per charge.
We hadn't written about the latest BMW X3 PHEV for the website, so it seemed like a win-win. Autocar would receive lovely pictures from Max Edleston and some tolerable words from me, and I would get to drive up north without spending hours charging en route.
The X3 has a 2.0-litre turbo petrol four, an electric motor and a 12kWh lithium ion battery. Officially it does around 30 miles of pure-EV driving, but in reality it does a lot less. No stress for me, as I could just fill up in moments thanks to the ICE.
Except that the 2.0-litre petrol is supplied by a measly 50-litre tank, and I had around 600 miles to cover there and back. And for the purposes of Porsche photography, we needed to do another couple of hundred miles. And we wouldn't have time to charge the tiddly battery. And the X3 needed to lug around that empty battery. And the need to get the shots before sunset meant we couldn't hang around while driving between locations.
Join the debate
Add your comment
Another overpriced electric SUV no-one wants. Car mags/sites may review them, and even have them on long term test, but would you really, and I mean really, pay nearly £50k for a Nissan? No, didn't think so. Most of their ICE cars are almost 1/2 the price.
Right now, Nissan UK have about 5 cars in their range, and all are SUV's. What an absolute dire state to get into.
Why pay your 50k when the starting price is from 39.6k.
The Ford Mustang Mach-E keenly priced ??? not at £44k it's not