Nissan to improve Leaf’s single-charge range to 260km

Nissan will give the current Leaf electric car a major midlife update in the coming months, and will increase its potential single-charge range to about 260km. The main change will be uprating the current 24kWh battery to a 30kWh unit, which will provide the extra range.

While the Leaf is the top-selling electric vehicle in Europe, in the US market sales have fallen lately, primarily because of the ending of some limited electric car tax breaks. Nissan hopes that the updates will keep the Leaf competitive until an entirely new successor arrives.

That car is still at least two years away, but Nissan is already making noises about its potential performance. Chief executive Carlos Ghosn has spoken recently of a new, thinner and lighter battery design that could boost one-charge range to as much as 500km – that's a figure far in advance of the current car's circa 200km range and one that could tip the balance in favour of electric cars for a much broader marketplace.

Speaking to Automotive News, Nissan chief competitive officer Hiroto Saikawa accepted that the Leaf had not sold as many units as Nissan had hoped, but he said he expected there would be a significant boom in electric vehicle sales in the run-up to 2020, and that Nissan "intends to keep its leadership in EVs".