Nissan Micra review

This is the new Nissan Micra – this sixth generation of the car, albeit one that has less than ever to do with the classic badge. Or is it a classic badge? It’s certainly got history, but perhaps not the cachet that Nissan might like to think.

Plenty of us were ferried about in them as youngsters or watched our grandparents drive them gingerly to the fish shop each Friday. Heck, some of us even learned to drive in one, but that hasn’t generated the sort of winsome nostalgia that other car names might enjoy.

Like the Renault 5, perhaps?

Well exactly like the Renault 5. Funny that car should come up, of course, because the 5 and the Micra share a significant amount of their underbits with each other. Actually that undersells it a bit – better to say that the Micra is a Renault 5 with the badges swapped out and a few tweaks to the bodywork.

Which isn’t necessarily bad – even a less chic Renault 5 is more stylish than the likes of the Peugeot e-208 or Vauxhall Corsa Electric. But maybe not quite in the same league as the Mini Cooper Electric, Fiat 500e, Fiat Grande Panda, Kia EV3 and Hyundai Inster.

The wheel arches are now round as opposed to the squared-off shape of the retro Renault, there’s extra black plastic on the doors, and Nissan reckons the headlights are meant to evoke the bug-eyed third generation K12, which was apparently the most popular (by whose standards?).

We’re not so sure that all the round elements down below work with the boxy Renault roofline. But at any rate, anyone coming at the Micra from a sentimental angle is unlikely to care.

So it’s basically the same as the Renault underneath?

Basically, yes – the car uses the same motors and batteries, and Nissan admits that it hasn’t made any tweaks to the drivetrain. Except the sense of fun has somehow been excised.

The Micra is an interesting exercise in how influential design and marketing fluff has become, and perhaps it means reassessing the 5 somewhat once you’ve driven the off-brand version.

How so?

Well, Nissan wants you to think the Micra is the more fun option, but it turns out a lot of character was in the front and rear lights. Shorn of the Eighties nostalgic beats that the Renault enjoys, the car could be construed as a bit meh.

It’s not bad – the ride is very good, efficiency impressive at over 4.0 miles per kWh on our UK test, and it’s a respectable enough car to drive... but it’s not fun. The boot is a decent size, but space for five is massively compromised (Nissan’s saying this is a small family car, we’re not demanding a lot of it) and there’s not much clever stuff in here to improve your life that a Dacia or a Skoda would throw in.

Are the numbers the same as the 5?

The price is exactly the same – both the 5 and the Micra start from £21,495 including the Government’s plug-in grant. Though at £26,115 the top-spec Micra is £830 cheaper than the fancy Roland Garros+ trim Renault. Take care of the pennies…

There are 40kWh and 52kWh battery options to choose from (see the Buying tab for more details), the former with a 121bhp motor and the latter offering 148bhp. They’ll manage 93mph top speeds (same as the R5) and get to 62mph from rest in 9.0 and 8.0 seconds respectively. That last one is 0.1s slower than the 52kWh 5. Oo-er.

Charging times are also the same – the 40kWh battery charges up to 80kW, the 52kWh battery up to 100kW if you find a rapid enough charger, making for 15 to 80 per cent charge in 30 minutes. There’s an 11kW AC charger as standard for more sedate top-ups.

There’s one area where the Micra makes a better case for itself – the range levels are slightly improved on the donor car, with the 40kWh car managing up to 196 miles of WLTP range and the 52kWh car up to 257 miles. A marginal increase of four and two miles respectively on the Renault.

Nissan has massively dropped the ball on electric – it practically invented the modern EV with the Leaf, but it dawdled for so long that it went from trailblazer to ancient artifact in two generations and the Mk3 is now a generic crossover. The Micra – only Nissan's third electric model – is a cynically rebadged Renault with apparently no input from Japan. Where’s all that innovation gone?

You won’t be unhappy if you buy one of these Micras – it’s efficient, drives nicely and gets an easy-to-use infotainment system – but the only reason not to get the R5 is if you desperately want steering wheel-mounted paddles, or if you specifically don’t like how the Renault looks. And we’re not sure that Nissan has really improved on those…