Nissan Ariya review

The dash is a simple affair, a layered cake. Big screens stand proud atop a band of cloth, and below are a line of vents. And below that the veneer that carries climate switchgear. The whole thing is slim, architectural and high quality.

Are there no buttons at all?

It’s a minimalist delight here – there are controls but on the centre console and dashboard you’ll find them lit through the veneer. They give a little haptic click when your finger presses. It's much easier than a touchscreen. Visually, they're a little piece of magic. Only issue is you have to look down to find them because they're not three-dimensional, and they can be hard to spot in direct sunlight.

What’s the infotainment like? 

You’ve got a big 12.3in touchscreen display in the middle of the dashboard, and another 12.3in digital instrument panel behind the steering wheel (backed up by a decently sized head-up display if you’ve ticked the right boxes).

You’ve got wireless Apple CarPlay and wired Android Auto as standard, which is good for satnav functions as the native one feels graphically left behind. The screen works well, though – it’s big and versatile, but can feel a bit laggy at times. The heated seats are fiddly to turn on and need too many jabs of the screen.

Is it practical though? 

Between the front seats is a console/armrest that slides back and forth – it holds lots of stuff, but can wobble a bit if you hit a bump half-way round a bend. There's another glovebox-type drawer below the central screen and a flat floor below, which adds to the feeling of roominess but does mean things fly about if you’ve popped them in the passenger footwell.

There’s plenty of room in the back, though, with room for three. The boot is a decent size too, with a wide, flat opening. There’s useful underfloor space in the FWD version – somewhere to put the charge cable, because there's no frunk.

You’ve got 466 litres of boots pace in the FWD version, down to 408 litres in the AWD models. Bigger than the Ford Mustang Mach-E and Volvo EC40, just shy of the Kia EV6, but quite a bit smaller compared to the boots in the Audi Q4 e-tron, Hyundai Ioniq 5, VW ID.4, and Skoda Enyaq.