Previewing the Ariya: I drove the Nissan e-4ORCE development vehicle

Late last year at the Tokyo Motor Show, Nissan debuted its Ariya concept: an all-electric crossover with all-wheel-drive.

Last week at the Consumer Electronics show, it made its North America debut. At the same time, the automaker took myself and a bunch of auto journalists out to the Las Vegas Speedway complex outside of town to experience the all-wheel-drive e-4ORCE system. That's basically the control system for the vehicle. It ties into the motor and braking system and relies on a number of sensors and driver input. It was a blast and also pretty informative.

I wrote up an article about it for InsideEVs.

Long story short, Nissan seems to understand how important this vehicle (Ariya) is for them. It was the only concept they brought to the show. The only other vehicles on its stand was a Leaf Plus, an NV-200 (which was used to serve up ice cream) and a season 6 Formula E car. All of these are, of course, electric.

The test car, basically a Nissan Leaf with a motor front and rear to make it all-wheel-drive. It put out around 300 horsepower. They didn't say how much power he eventual product would have, but I wouldn't be surprised to see it in that same neighborhood.

If you have any questions, please feel free to ask.

 

Guess this thread could use a few photos of the actual car. This first one is from the Tokyo Motor Show.



They wouldn't let us get inside the vehicle at either Tokyo or CES, but at least they left the doors open as it spun on its turntable in Vegas, so I tried to get some of the interior.

 

I feel relatively confident predicting that Nissan will announce the production version before the end of this year and sales next summer.

Hopefully, I'm not being naively optimistic.

 

Hi, Tony, and no problem bumping the thread.
The Ariya has a switch in the center console to put it in e-pedal mode, which is Nissan's one-pedal driving mode. So, sorry, no regen adjustment on paddles. Our walkaround video show it. It should be cued up at the right part when you hit play.

 

Well, I'd originally expected first deliveries to be happening this summer, but that was before COVID and the chip shortages hit. The last update we've had on timing came in June, when we learned that pre-orders had opened in Japan for delivery this winter. Pre-orders in the US, Europe and China will open later this year for deliveries in 2022. Definitely far later than expected.

Nissan really needs to get this thing into showrooms. Every missed week is ceding sales and market share to an increasing amount of competition.

 

I'm usually a fan of going with the 2-wheel-drive version of EVs, but in the Ariya's case, I'd go e-4orce if I could.
One, I don't like front-wheel drive so much and two, the E-4orce system should be pretty good. It seemed like they're really making an effort to optimize the abilities of the electric-drive setup. For instance, they try to improve pitch and dive on acceleration and deceleration by precisely controlling the energy output or regen braking forces on front and back motors.

Color-wise, I really like the Akatsuki Copper. It's unlike anything else out there. Also, I like to say "Akatsuki."

 

I speak some Japanese, but didn't realize this, so thanks for sharing. Now I like it even more and am going to go out of my way to use it in a sentence with my wife, Motoko. Repeatedly.

 

Not sure who you mean by "on the board," but no one has a production Ariya yet, since they haven't started series production. We will be able to make a reservation sometime this year, according to the Nissan US Ariya website.

 

Oh, sorry, I should have understood you were referring to the Forum as a message board.
If Japanese media gets to drive the Ariya before other press, there should also be videos. In Japanese, at least. Those may have auto-translate, so we should have an idea of their impressions. I also understand some Japanese, so will be keeping an eye out on those first reviews.

 

To be honest, I don't recall. But, the seats in the mule we drove were probably LEAF seats and different from what will come in the Ariya. Kyle may have mentioned seat comfort in his walk-around video.