The Nissan Leaf has been one of the most successful electric vehicles anywhere in the world. It’s one of those EVs which have gone a long way in dispelling people’s apprehensions about electric cars as practical everyday means of personal transport. The first gen Leaf sold in great numbers, amassing a sales volume of 2,60,000 and was a pioneer of sorts. Much, thus, is expected from the second gen version of the car which is not just supposed to be better than its forebear, but is expected to create new benchmarks for a subcompact electric vehicle.
The current gen Leaf has a range of over 170 km with its 30 kWh battery. While that appeared pretty impressive only a couple of years ago, the increasingly unreal range of modern EVs makes that number rather okay-ish in today’s context.
The new Leaf, due for a progressive reveal over the next few weeks has been revealed in part by Nissan with an image of its headlamp. The new car is expected to be visually more appealing. If the detailing on the twin barrel headlamps is something to go by, we can expect the new car to pack in quite a few visual fireworks. While fully camouflaged test mules of the new Leaf have been spied in the past with a swooping roofline and overall proportions similar to the current gen car, the detailing could actually be very different.
Expected to make its show debut at the 2017 Frankfurt Motor Show in September, the new Leaf is expected to be powered by bigger 40 and 60 kWh batteries. While there is no official word on the range of the new car, we expect that the version with the bigger battery could deliver a range in excess of 400 km, which is fantastic for a car this size. The 40 kWh variant should also be able to deliver a range of 300 km, which is pretty practical too.
“Amazing things are worth waiting for” says the caption for the teaser image. Whether the new Leaf is actually as amazing as it’s made out to be will be ascertained only upon the car’s official reveal.
Check out an image gallery of the current gen Lead in the meantime.
