The 2026 Nissan Leaf Is A Smash Hit!

Here’s a curveball: The 2026 Nissan Leaf isn’t merely a great new EV starting at just under $30,000. It’s a great car, flat out, whether it runs on gas, electric…pixie dust. It doesn’t matter. It handles beautifully, balancing sportiness when you want it, with consistent poise and more than a small dose of luxury. Ever since I first started talking to Nissan officials about the new Leaf more than six months ago, they said they were targeting “grade-above” manners. In fact, they landed on grade-above everything. Nissan needs some positive vibes after a lot of anything but that, and the 2026 Leaf is exactly that.

FYI: Nissan invented the EV category, not Tesla, with the original Leaf. During our test drive of the new Leaf just outside San Diego, they cheekily shared a 2011-focused playlist for Spotify, just as a hint about that fact. The original Leaf went on sale in the U.S. in 2012.

Of course, there are two big facts that matter here as well. One, Nissan happened to launch the original Leaf into the teeth of economic turmoil. And history is echoing that again. And second, Nissan ceded that early EV lead to Tesla.

Here we are, more than a decade later, and there are way more rivals for Nissan to fend off. But this car represents a very good, if not outright excellent, effort. And here I’ll do my best to explain the hows and whys—and where the best-value model is in the mix.

Base Trim Engine

Electric

Base Trim Transmission

Single-speed Automatic

Base Trim Drivetrain

Front-Wheel Drive

Base Trim Horsepower

174 hp

Base Trim Torque

254 lb-ft

How The Nissan Leaf Drives

Nissan

I was a little concerned that with 214 horsepower and 261 pound-feet of torque, the Leaf would feel a tad lethargic off the line. It’s not. I wasn’t able to test 0-60 MPH, but I’d be surprised if it takes much more than six seconds to do the deed. More importantly, for real-world driving, the Leaf felt genuinely quick, especially where it matters, like when passing going uphill, on steep mountain grades.

TopSpeed | Michael Frank

Nissan officials stressed that the carmaker’s also gifted the Leaf with an all-new suspension via the Ariya, as well as a recalibrated steering rack from that car. All of which shows. The Leaf (depending on model grade) is roughly 300-500 pounds lighter than the Ariya, too, and you can tell. It’s more athletic, and although I wouldn’t call the Leaf a “sports car,” it is surprisingly agile.

That’s very much down to a starting weight in the low 4,000-pound range. For an EV, that’s very light. It’s still about 800 pounds heavier than a Subaru Crosstrek, which is a good way to think about its general size, but the Nissan likes to be tossed around corners much more than that crossover—and is far quicker, too.

The Cost Breakdown

TopSpeed | Michael Frank

You might be expecting the best Leaf would be the most affordable, S+. But as the grade walk below shows, the best deal is (perhaps) going to be on the mid-grade SV+. I’ll mesmerize you with some of what comes on each grade here, but don’t worry; I’m sticking around to explain how I would buy this car.

2026 Nissan Leaf Pricing

Google Services And Why They Matter

TopSpeed | Michael Frank

So now that you’ve eyeballed that mind-numbing chart, consider a few key factors:

• You get Google goodies on the SV+ and above.
• You also get heated seats—and can’t have those on S+.
• Six-speaker audio is better than four speakers.

The Google services equation could matter a lot to you, especially if you think you’ll public charge a great deal. Also, depending on where you live, so are heated seats. But the Google Built-In component includes two functions you’re likely going to want.

First, you can directly load apps to your car; it’s not phone-dependent.

Second, this also means Google Maps are enhancing Nissan’s native tech system. Map to a public charger, and the car prioritizes state of charge, and eyeballs your overall route, too. Now the car will help you maximize range and reduce the number of stops on your journey. And when you choose a charger as a destination, the car automatically preconditions the battery, too.

Is there a workaround if you still get the cheaper S+? Yep. And it’s reasonably clever.

The MyNissan App

Nissan

Let’s say you’re sold on the S+ instead, because $4,000 extra bucks isn’t in your budget. In that case the MyNissan app is your friend. Actually, it is regardless of the grade of Leaf you buy, because it’ll streamline paying for public charging. You register a credit card with the app and then the bulk of public chargers will enable “plug and charge,” without ever using that charge network’s app or going through any of those, too often bothersome onboarding processes.

The MyNissan app also incorporates route planning. But, of course, that doesn’t include any of the nifty Google Built-in handiness. But because CarPlay/Android Auto are native to the new Leaf, you should be able to use this app on your car’s screen as a workaround.

Home And Away Charging

Nissan

If you’re shopping for an affordable EV, your choices are far too limited. At least until next year, when we should see the next Chevy Bolt, as well as the Subaru Uncharted and Toyota C-HR. The Leaf has the early lead on those cars, because it will go on sale this fall.

Charging Speeds and Technical Details

• DC Fast Charging: @150kW = 10-80 percent in 35 minutes
• Level 2 Home Charging @7.2kW = Competitive, but not ultra-fast

There are two facets to consider here. First, the fast-charging speed isn’t amazing, in part because Nissan is using 400-volt architecture. This is similar to what you will see on the new Kia EV4—which could be priced competitively against the Nissan. Ditto, the Subaru Uncharted and Toyota C-HR, both maxing out at 150kW for DC fast charging.

Nissan

But the Subaru/Toyota will get 11kW Level 2 equipment for home charging. Obviously, that’s faster than 7.2 kW. I asked Jeff Tessmer, an engineer with Nissan, why they didn’t equip the new Leaf with a faster charger. He cited cost. And he said the carmaker’s experience with so many Leaf sales and now Ariya, is that the number is a bragging right. Still, in reality, it doesn’t matter that much for a car with a relatively small battery, and a lot of the utility grid isn’t necessarily going to allow higher speeds. There are lots of breaks from utilities that throttle output. Not to mention, your home’s electric panel might not have the capacity to go higher.

Bottom line, 7.2 is fine for most homeowners charging their Leafs overnight. But you can get rivals who are going to argue otherwise.

Very Good Fit And Finish

Nissan

We were test-driving pre-production cars. That means you’ll see seams and other cosmetics that don’t fit perfectly. (Unlike with Tesla, where that’s normal on production vehicles.) But from what I saw, the Nissan Leaf looks mostly very well sorted, and the mix of manual and digital controls is spot on.

Nissan

I love the retro-simple PRND buttons right on the dash for gear selection, and there’s an analog volume knob, centrally located, too. Climate functions nest in the central screen, but there’s far less tapping and swiping necessary to navigate functions.

Three Hangups

TopSpeed | Michael Frank

Want to know what could be problematic for Nissan? Here are two legit issues and one niggle.

• NACS and Level 2 charge ports could confuse buyers
• FWD-only
• 3-D lighting looks weird when off

I’ll tackle the last one first. The Platinum + grade gets trick tail lamps that look like they’re three-dimensional. They’re visually awesome—when they’re on. But during daytime, when they’re not, they look like vacant black-and-white TV screens on the tail of the Leaf. It’s a quibble, but the bummer is that these killer lamps aren’t the car’s brake lights.

Nissan

More critically, the Leaf gets two charging ports. One’s for home charging, on the driver’s side, and the passenger’s side gets a NACS (a.k.a., Tesla-style) DC fast charging port. You can’t really screw this up, because most home chargers that don’t come from Tesla aren’t going to let you plug in. And Nissan developed the NACS port specifically with Tesla Supercharging stations in mind; they have annoyingly short cords that are hard to reach, so this setup is meant to overcome that issue.

Still, there will be a learning curve for new EV buyers. And lastly, lots of buyers may balk at buying the front-wheel-drive-only Leaf if they feel like AWD is a must. That’s pretty QED, especially if cars like the Subaru Uncharted are priced competitively against the Leaf.

TopSpeed’s Take

TopSpeed | Michael Frank

There’s another Nissan Leaf to come, a base model S with a 52 kWh battery and 196 miles of range. Nissan isn’t in any hurry to sell that, and it likely won’t arrive until mid next year. I doubt that will see many takers, but perhaps city dwellers will find it appealing—and you can imagine it’ll be important for fleet sales.

Regardless, the basic goodness of this car is impressive across every grade.

And standard ingredients like around-view camera tech, wireless phone connectivity, and excellent driving manners mean Nissan’s biggest struggle is going to be overcoming the company’s foot-dragging in updating the Leaf. They not only squandered an early lead in the space, but they now have to win over new customers, too. And do so against bigger rivals like Chevy and Toyota. Nobody cares about Nissan’s one-time EV lead. That’s ancient history. What Nissan has to hope is that customers will care about a 2026 Leaf that is legitimately splendid.