The Ariya is Nissan’s most compelling SUV in ages.
For Nissan, the Ariya is a big deal. It's the centerpiece of its reinvention, with the automaker seeking greater profits from more exciting models. It's also another entry into the hottest segment of the moment—the mid-size, electric crossover. With that comes competition from just about everyone else, so Nissan has to get this one right. For the most part, it did.
It's a striking thing in person, virtually unchanged in appearance to the Ariya concept of 2019. Nissan nailed the classic concept-car look, smartly using a black roof and chrome trim line to make the car appeal lower. The design team also gets points for really taking advantage of the design freedom provided by a dedicated EV platform, pushing the wheels out to the corners, and moving the cabin forward to give a futuristic look and improve interior space.
Our tester was an EMPOWER+ model. The cringey name indicates that this is the top-trim front-wheel drive Ariya, equipped with an 87-kWh battery pack, the larger of the two offered. Being a higher-trim model, the interior was well-appointed. It's not class-leading—for that, look towards the Hyundai Ioniq 5 and Kia EV6 siblings—but it represents a huge step forward for Nissan, whose cabins have long lagged behind the competition.
Nissan wants the Ariya to appeal to first-time EV buyers, and if you were stepping out of a conventional gas-powered crossover into this it would feel familiar, for better or for worse. Acceleration is tempered off the line, so there's no Tesla-esque force-you-back-into-the-seat action if you stomp on it from a dead stop. Power instead builds as in a gas engine, and by the time you're rolling at around 40 mph, accelerator-pedal response is more what we've come to expect from EVs.
Worth noting is the brake pedal. In the earlier days of hybrids and EVs, the brakes often felt odd, as the pedal controls both regenerative braking from the motors and pad-meets-disc friction braking. Many automakers have ironed that out, making their blended brake pedals feel like traditional systems—Nissan hasn't, and the Ariya's left pedal has a strange, spongy feel. The car stops perfectly fine, of course, it just doesn't feel like the pedal is connected to a mechanical system.
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