Nissan used to be the leader in affordable EVs. I drove the redesigned 2026 Leaf to see if the company can reclaim that title.

Nissan invented the affordable electric vehicle, long before I even knew that was something I wanted.

Back in 2010, when the Leaf debuted, electric cars were still seen as lame, tree-hugging experiments, and the Leaf didn’t do much to dispel the notion. It was slow, offered only around 100 miles of range and suffered from massive battery degradation because Nissan didn’t fit it with a battery cooling system. A fine enough city car, perhaps, but nothing to really move the needle. In the 15 years since, the EV industry has taken great strides forward.

(Full Disclosure: Nissan invited me to a fancy hotel in San Diego for the Leaf first drive, but since I’m local, I slept at home. Still, I did eat dinner at the fancy hotel, and there was a nice free lunch along the drive route as well.)

After a long wait, the third-generation 2026 Nissan Leaf is here. It now offers over 300 miles of range, a seriously improved cabin experience and a new SUV-adjacent design. Most importantly, it still starts at just $29,990.

On paper, then, it looks like the perfect electric reset for a brand desperately in need of a win. But that game is going to be won or lost on the road, so I spent a few hours driving the new Leaf around my home roads in San Diego, California to figure out if Nissan actually pulled this off.

I walked away surprised, and—for the first time in a while—excited about a new Nissan.

Why The Leaf Matters

Affordable EVs have never been more important. With the tax credit going away, Americans who could pick up a Chevrolet Equinox EV for $28,000 last year will now have to pay $35,000 for the same car. For some people, that’ll be the difference between affording a new EV and having to settle for gas.

But right as the tax credit disappears, Nissan is launching an EV with over 300 miles of range for just $31,485 with destination fees. For a company that has consistently launched middling products to little fanfare, this may finally be the right car at the right time.

Of course, like everyone else, Nissan is also trying to push its cars more upmarket. So while the S+ model is the value king, Nissan only provided the Platinum+ trim to test.

It’s far more luxurious than any Leaf before it, with Nissan promising “segment above” comfort. That means the Leaf—which competes with cars like the upcoming Chevrolet Bolt EUV and the existing Hyundai Kona EV—should be as comfortable and luxurious as cars like the Hyundai Ioniq 5, Chevrolet Equinox EV and Nissan Ariya.

It’s no secret why Nissan can promise that: The Leaf rides on the same CMF-EV platform that underpins the Ariya, and uses a lot of the same technology. But with a lower price, a more familiar name, a better design and a factory Tesla-style North American Charging System (NACS) plug, the Leaf already looks like the favorite child.

That trim level is loaded, too. You get a multi-segment electronically dimming panoramic roof, faux leather seating, LED lights at all four corners, a Bose sound system and dual 14.3-inch driver displays. Those displays are running Nissan’s newest software, which uses Google Built-In for apps, maps and voice controls.

That means you get automatic route planning through Google Maps and, when you do find a charger, you can even watch movies on the central display. (Note that this functionality was not enabled on the test cars, so I couldn’t try it.)

Leafs (Leaves?) also come standard with vehicle-to-load (V2L) technology, so you can use an adapter to export power from your AC charging port. That means you can power your camp or job site, and even set a discharge limit in the car so that it won’t go under a certain state of charge. That means you should be able to leave the climate control running all night if you want, or run your fridge in a blackout.

You also get Nissan’s newest generation of electric powertrains, which the company calls a 3-in-1 system. That means they package the inverter, reducer and motor together, which should save space. Unfortunately, though, the company still doesn’t offer a front trunk.

The motor makes 214 horsepower and 262 pound-feet of torque, plenty for a 4,200-lb vehicle with instant torque. And because the Leaf has a 0.26 coefficient of drag and a tidier curb weight than most, it squeezes up to 303 miles out of a 75-kilowatt-hour battery.

Note, however, that the 19-inch wheels and extra weight of the Platinum come with a big range hit. Top-trim Leafs offer just 259 miles of range. And despite the crossover branding, you can’t get one with all-wheel drive.

Still, with native Tesla Supercharger support and 150-kilowatt charging speeds you can get from 10-80% in 35 minutes. Not brilliant, but in the meaty part of the bell curve for EVs at this price point, and far ahead of cars like the last-gen Bolt and the current-generation Equinox EV.

The biggest advantage of the Leaf is that it’s quite charming to drive. It rides well over broken pavement and city streets, with only a bit of occasional head-tossing motions from undulating pavement. It’s perfectly smooth on the highway and so quiet that I found myself accidentally touching 85 mph before I looked down and noticed.

And despite going 75 on the highway and blasting up mountain roads at a pace that would make most Leaf owners squirm, I still managed 4.0 miles per kWh, which is great for that sort of driving.

Most importantly, I had fun. Most electric SUVs are far stiffer than the average gas crossover and yet still offer no steering feel. With no roll or noise to give you a sensation of speed and no information coming through the wheel, I find most EVs disconcerting to drive fast. But the Leaf is softer than most, with a body that likes to lean into corners and squat out of them.

roll is over, the experience ends up being a lot more fun. With my inner ear and the roll of the car signalling how much grip I had left, I found it shockingly easy to push the Leaf right up until the tires started to squeal.

I’d load up the front suspension when diving into a corner, let the back end rotate slightly behind me and blast out with the front wheels just barely slipping.

It’s certainly no sports car. Yet if I had to pick between a Leaf and a Hyundai Ioniq 5 or Chevy Equinox EV for a back-roat blitz, I’d take the Nissan without a second’s hesitation.

What’s Bad

I happen to love the rolly-poly vibe of the Leaf, but plenty of others may hate it. If your definition of driving fun is an ultra-stiff car that never flinches until you hear the tires squeal, this ain’t it.

And even if you do subscribe to the notion that body roll is a form of communication—a theory that the Miata and the E46 BMW M3 prove conclusively, in my eye—the Leaf still has a mushy brake pedal and dead steering. For an economy car, that’s fine, but the vibe is more like driving the wheels of a Sentra rental car than it is like driving a sports car. Yet if the goal was to make a mildly fun everyday EV, I still think Nissan nailed it.

But even those who never drive fast may take issue with the brake pedal. While the second-generation Leaf had an “E-Pedal” mode that offered true one-pedal driving, the Leaf borrows the “e-Step” option from the Ariya. It will aggressively regenerate when you lift off the throttle, but actually stopping requires you to press the brake. The regen effect also feels delayed, not immediate, so it’s a challenge to moderate.

The unforgivable part is that when e-Step is activated, the brake pedal physically moves when you lift off the throttle. So you go to move your foot to the brake and it’s half an inch further away than you expect. I get that Nissan wants to have a linear brake pedal that doesn’t change depending on your mode, but a brake pedal moving on its own is unacceptable to me. I want to know it’s exactly where I left it.

A Nissan spokesman confirmed that the company is aware of customer feedback regarding the lack of one-pedal driving, and noted that the choice was made in part because Japanese regulators prefer for the brake pedal to be the only way to stop the vehicle, so that muscle memory takes over in a panic stop. I get that, but I think a half-step with creep enabled is the worst of both worlds.

Speaking of which, I think Nissan’s charge port strategy here is another miss. The company includes a NACS port and was smart enough to put it on the front right corner, which means you should be able to use even short-handled Superchargers so long as you park nose-in. That’s a big win over a car like the Equinox EV, which needs to be double-parked at older Superchargers.

Yet Nissan included a separate J1772 port for Level 2 slow charging. The company says it chose to do so so that people with existing J1772 chargers at home or work—like, say, Ariya or Leaf owners—won’t need to buy an adapter. But to include the J1772 port, Nissan had to make the NACS port DC-only.

o while you can plug a Supercharger into the Leaf, plugging a Tesla Destination Charger or a NACS Level 2 cord into it will yield an error message. So while you don’t need an adapter in the short term, as the rest of the industry transitions to NACS you may want a NACS-to-J1772 adapter, which is different from the CCS-to-NACS adapter you’ll need to use existing Electrify America or EVGo infrastructure.

This solution is inelegant and expensive. Consumers struggle enough as it is to understand the differences between slow and fast charging, and between NACS, CCS and J1772. Only including a NACS port would have been mildly less convenient for some owners, but would have been much easier to explain. Plug it in, and if it doesn’t fit, use the adapter that does. Now, you’ll have cords that do fit, and the charging still won’t work.

We’re all in adapter hell, so I can’t really blame Nissan. But it does seem like the company spent a lot of time and money to engineer a solution that the average dealer is not going to be able to explain to the average customer.

The average customer may also be baffled by the fact that—despite its crossover branding—the new Leaf actually offers less cargo space than the outgoing hatchback model.

With 20 cubic feet of storage with the rear seats up, the Leaf offers considerably less space than the Hyundai Kona EV, even if it beats out the old Bolt. But part of this is because the Leaf gets a bigger back seat, so it still has far more space than the outgoing model with the rear seats folded (up to 55 cubic feet).

Finally, it’s ridiculous that the battery heater is a $300 option on the lower trims. Lithium-ion batteries really do not like getting cold, which is why almost every other modern EV includes a battery heater standard, and will automatically use it to protect the battery in the cold.

I get that Nissan had to cut some corners to match the outgoing model’s starting price while doubling the range and battling tariffs, but it’s silly to make such an essential bit of kit optional.

Early Verdict

Every car has faults. The fact that I can only really complain about a dumb optional extra, a lack of one-pedal driving and a confusing adapter situation is proof that Nissan has built a pretty compelling car here.

While the Leaf doesn’t break any new ground for EV tech, it offers all of the software features and luxury options you’d want in a package that’s unique-looking, efficient and charming to drive—without being outrageously expensive

It’s proof, then, of just how compelling EVs are when you get the fundamentals right. All EVs have perfect powertrains and quiet cabins. But by adding a few software features, trimming the cabin in soft-touch materials, stuffing in some gadgets and refining the suspension, you can turn something ho-hum into something that anyone would be happy to drive every day.

Most companies have not yet pulled this off. Toyota’s software isn’t there. The Chevy EVs I’ve driven have all rattled and faced some software issues, and they feel heavy and bloated. Volkswagen nails the suspension but whiffs on the user experience.

The Nissan Leaf does not set a new bar in any of these categories. Instead, by being good enough at everything and cheaper than almost anything, it has become better than the sum of its parts. It alone cannot make Nissan a true EV leader.

But for the first time in a decade, the automaker is back in the conversation.

Gallery: 2026 Nissan Leaf: First Drive

RS Details Loophole Extending Federal EV Tax Credit

By Jennifer Geiger

August 26, 2025

Share Cadillac EVs at Tesla Supercharger | Manufacturer image

After months of speculation, the government announced earlier this summer that the federal electric vehicle tax credit has an expiration date: Sept. 30. But not so fast: The Internal Revenue Service recently updated the timeline, giving some buyers a bit more time.

According to the IRS, if a buyer orders a vehicle and puts money down on it before Sept. 30 but takes delivery after that date, they can still claim the tax credit at that later date.

“If a taxpayer acquires a vehicle by having a written binding contract in place and a payment made on or before Sept. 30, 2025, then the taxpayer will be entitled to claim the credit when they place the vehicle in service (namely, when they take possession of the vehicle), even if the vehicle is placed in service after Sept. 30, 2025. Taxpayers should receive a time-of-sale report from the dealer at the time they take possession or within three days of taking possession of the vehicle,” the IRS said on its website.

What does this mean for shoppers? The extension could save them thousands: Eligible shoppers can claim a credit of up to $7,500 for new EVs and up to $4,000 for used EVs.

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Jennifer Geiger

News Editor Jennifer Geiger joined the automotive industry in 2003, much to the delight of her Corvette-obsessed dad. Jennifer is an expert reviewer, certified car-seat technician and mom of three. She wears a lot of hats — many of them while driving a minivan.