Nissan Leaf review

Impressively self-assured but not the least bit zany. It'd sooner iron your trousers and fold them into the right drawer than set them on fire with a blowtorch. Will that do?

No I need more please.

Okay. The standard battery version has 177bhp and 255lb ft, and manages 0-62mph in 8.6 seconds. Corresponding figures for the long-range version are a noticeable step beyond: 218bhp and 262lb ft for 0-62 in 7.6s. That's the one we've tested.

It's a smooth surge, maybe without the all-out gumption that you'd think from 218bhp, because it's close to two tonnes in this spec. But this sort of EV isn't about peak acceleration. It's about useful, responsive, seamless progress.

Both versions are limited to 100mph should you wish to hammer the battery. Nissan gave us stats for this: driving at a steady 81mph instead of 70mph loses you 60 miles range: 207 versus 267. That proportional drop is pretty much the same with any single-speed EV… or indeed petrol car.

How is it to steer?

It's very tidy on the road, even if there isn’t all that much grip. Nissan's 'trace control' – a sort of early intervention ESP that wouldn't be detectable if you didn't know it was there – works well. So understeer stays in check through and out of bends until it becomes the default state to announce close of play. Traction is pretty good, and you can use the accelerator to trim things, giving a measure of the interaction the feel-less steering denies you.

Still, the steering is accurate and well-weighted, so it's an easy car to conduct. It's motorway manners are especially good, and even in stormy weather straight-line stability is fine. It's not a car that relies on lane-keeping software.

Damping control at speed is good, and low speed urban ride pretty impressive with it. Of course you feel the weight over speed bumps. The long-range spec is 1,930kg, which, woefully, is about the average for EVs this size.

The drive modes – Personal, Sport, Standard and Eco – have very little effect on the Leaf's behaviour. The brakes have a trustworthy pedal and the ProPilot ADAS system plus regen paddles give you loads of choice between free sailing and adaptive one-pedal drive.

Talking of ProPilot. You have very simple access to your preferred lane departure and limit-bonger and other settings. Just tap the roller button on the steering wheel when you start the car. That said, versus the badly calibrated and absurdly intrusive system on many Chinese rivals, you could often tolerate leaving the Leaf's aids switched on anyway.

Using ProPilot for main-road driving, it follows the lines and the car in front pretty diligently, and you can choose to link it to the navigation so it slows for junctions and roundabouts.

What sort of efficiency is it capable of?

Anything over 4.0 mi/kWh is very good, and that's basically what we extracted from the Leaf in stop-start traffic over the course of a couple of hours, albeit in the summer which batteries prefer to winter temps. So in regular driving you can expect 300 miles out of the long-range Leaf; on the motorway more like 250.