The NEW 2026 Nissan Leaf is the MOST affordable EV
[Music] Hey guys, what’s up? It’s Joe Ready from Rady’s Rides. We’re back here at one of my favorite filming spot location because guess what? We have something totally redesigned and re-imagined for 2026. What am I talking about? This vehicle right here. This is the allnew 2026 Nissan Leaf. This particular one is the top dog trim. It’s known as the Platinum Plus. But before we get into the OG of Nissan EVs, let’s talk about what’s going on here. So, you heard correctly. The Leaf is the OG from Nissan when it comes to an electrified vehicle. And it’s fascinating because I feel like many people have forgotten that. It’s like we look at a lot of new brands that are coming to market, Rivian, Tesla, so on and so forth, and a lot of the other brands, you know, starting to produce EVs, but it was back in 2011 when Nissan originally came out with the Leaf. Now, what’s funny, I didn’t even know this. It’s the third generation of the Leaf. So, there were two generations where it was a hatchback and it basically sat on a bloated Nissan Versa chassis. this particular Leaf, all new, totally different direction. What’s great is is you’re still going to get your different trims starting with S, S+, SV, SV+, and then Platinum and Platinum Plus, but you’re also looking at affordability. Nissan wanted to make sure that they stay the most affordable of the of the EVs. So, why don’t we go ahead? Let’s dive in. Find out what is so unique about this Leaf and is it really did they did they get it right? Is it really the most affordable electrified vehicle you could currently purchase? Let’s go ahead. Let’s dive in and find out. Right off the bat, new color specific to the Leaf. It’s called Seabbze Blue Pearlescent Metallic. And it really gives that attitude of this being an allnew vehicle. Now, the front of the business, you’ll see how they sculpted the new headlight design, the headlight housing, all LED, LED daytime running lamps, the turn signals. I like the way they shaped it to give it a little bit of that V because remember at the front of Nissan’s, you always have that Votion grill. You don’t have a grill on this vehicle, but they kind of incorporated that overall design. And now working our way down. I like the way they did the unique style to the lighting. And then you have triple LED beam headlights. You got that Seab Breeze blue and then you have a little bit of gloss black. What’s nice is is that they didn’t try to make this look like a vent. The only thing I would have liked to have seen is maybe some LED driving lights down here. Vertical or horizontal driving lights would have been a nice touch, but still very, very clean, very modern design. And then you have some flat black on the lower lip. Now, as we come across the nose, there’s that Nissan badge with your forward- facing camera. It does illuminate. And then they took the Leaf name and they actually embossed it within the trim here and your daytime running lamp. This is very similar to what you see on the new Morano, how they took the Morano name and stamped it in there. Now, working our way down, there’s that V. You could kind of see the overall shape of the V there. I like the way that they did the nose. It actually gives it a lot of character. Working our way down, you have full functionality on the bottom because remember we do have a lithium ion liquid cool battery pack in the belly of this vehicle and a very aggressive lower lip splitter here in flat black. But let me know what you think about the face of this Leaf, especially compared to the previous generations. previous generations, it just looked like a bland, weird hatchback. Now we have this unique shape to it. Working our way up, you’ll notice how they curve the front hood to give us that nice low drag coefficient number. And then the only body line really is the way they raise the peaks on each side. What’s nice about that is when you’re driving, uh, you could see that as a good visual reference point. Now, as we go around, what are we working with? wheel and tire setup. I’m very happy to say you’re not getting boring wheels. 19inch wheel, gloss black, machine aluminum. Tires are going to be 235 on the width, 45 series sidewall. And what’s nice is is that they’re just frontwheel drive. There’s no all-wheel drive. You don’t have to worry about picking between all-wheel drive, front wheel, just front-wheel drive. And you’re going to be able to get charging doors on both sides. So, we have a charging door on the passenger side and a charging outlet and door on the driver’s side. So, nice to see that. My only zon is is especially on the platinum, I would have liked to have seen this painted the blue instead of the flat black. But, let me know what you think about the wheel style. Very, like I said, this vehicle has a very modern look to it. I’m kind of digging the wheel. It almost looks like an old transistor or something like that. Very cool. Now, coming down the side, you do have gloss black on the mirror caps, LED turn signals, our 360° camera. You don’t have to get a Leaf two-tone, but this particular one is the two-tone. Black painted roof with a panoramic glass roof. And then I like the way they did the black, but then they went with a flat gray finish along the top here. That gunmetal gray I think gives it some nice style rather than just being flat black. Now up front you do get flush mounted door handles for aerodynamics. And you’ll notice a very nice bit of design with the way that they did that indentation on the lower portion of the doors. And then there is a lot of glo of flat black on the bottom. Like I said, I think for a Platinum Plus, it should be painted. That’s just my two cents as they say. Coming towards the rear, you got your door handles built into the actual door itself. Like I said, it’s all about aerodynamic efficiency. And I like the way that gunmetal trim, look at look at how it flares out towards the rear. Sort of reminds me of the trim on the Nissan Z. And I’m kind of liking the way they took some elements from their other vehicles and brought it into this one. Now, as we swing it around back, you’ll notice how that body line flares into the rear quarter panel. Looks good. And really, I feel like this vehicle is like the Toyota Crown in a way. It’s not an SUV, but it’s not a sedan, but it’s not a hatchback. It’s actually a sportback. So, you got that nice aerodynamic coming over the rear glass kickup spoiler within the gloss black. Look at the way they did the LED lighting. The tail lights actually mimic what’s on the Nissan Z. Even the way they spelled out the name Nissan and the silver pops nicely. You have your button here to open up the rear Sportback. And then you have your just leaf that you don’t need to put platinum or any of this other garbage. And then working our way down the ground level, it’s a little bit of a mixture of gloss black with some flat black. And you’ll notice on the edges there, you see the the vertical stack of horizontal lines. That’s to mimic what is on the front bumper area. But this really shows that Nissan is trying. They’re trying to re-imagine things to be back where they need to be in the auto industry. But why don’t we go ahead? Let’s pop the hood and check out the motor and hear the stats. All right, guys. We got the hood popped. There is a prop rod. I’m not going to zon it because let’s be honest, you’re not going to see many of these at the cars and coffee events near your home. Now, what do we have underneath there? There is that electric motor setup. Like I said, it’s single motor, frontwheel drive. You’re looking at 214 horsepower, 261 pound- feet of torque. It uses a 75 kW liquid cooled lithium ion battery pack. 0 to 60 in about 6.9 seconds. Top speed is governed to 102 mph. MPG on the Platinum Plus, 110 in the city, 96 on the highway. You have a range of about 260 miles. And then if you charge it on a DC fast charger from 10% to 80% it takes about 30 minutes. So obviously this isn’t meant to be a long range 500 mile EV. But I think for city use and drivability, I think you’re going to be surprised. But why don’t we go ahead? Let’s turn it on and see it zoom off. All right, guys. We’re inside this 2026 Nissan Leaf Platinum Plus. Now, I know you’re saying to yourself, “Well, Joe, I’m shocked by this new Leaf. It looks nothing like the old Leaf. I’m kind of digging it. I want an EV, but I don’t want to spend $50, $60,000. How much is this? Well, let me just preface and tell you that the S, which is your base trim, same horsepower, all that, you’re looking at an MSRP starting at $26,000. So, that does make it the least expensive brand new, I’m not talking about pre-owned, brand new EV. this particular one being a Platinum Plus and wait until you see some of the goodies that it has. You’re looking at an MSRP of $42,000. Still a far cry from 50,55 $60,000, but let’s see what you get when you go with the new Leaf to the door panels. I’m liking and not liking what they did. So, up top you have this cloth material. Not my favorite, but it does bring a pop of color to what could possibly be a boring door panel. Now, you’ll notice at the base of it, there’s ambient lighting, which is really nice. What I really, really like, and I wish they would have used more of is that navy blue finish that looks really nice. Soft touch. There is gloss black around the switch gear. That’s a big old zon. Door pocket though is ginormous. You could get yourself your Yeti can in there with your favorite cold brew and you could have I would say probably two croissants or two honey buns or sweet buns in there. Now going from the door panel to the dash, same thing. The cloth not my favorite, but I do like the way they do the ambient lighting. The nice dark navy blue color really brings up the level of feel in here. little bit of this piping and then slide on in. You’re going to be greeted to two 12.3 inch screens. I like the way they’re mounted. You don’t get a lot of glare, which is nice. And you could do full touchcreen if you want. You could bring up stuff like your electric vehicle information for your Leaf. Um, you could also bring up your different apps, YouTube, Spotify, all those goodies. Look how many apps there are. It’s like an It’s like a mini app store. And then you do also have your your heated uh heated seats and heated steering wheel. No ventilated seats at this price point, but you do get heated seats, heated steering wheel, and it’s just a regular AC system. It’s not dual climate. So, you could either control on the screen here or you could bring up this one as well. blower fan and your temperature. Or you could touch down here with the haptic button. So you got your three stages of heated seats. I could adjust my blower fan and then the temperature. Let me throw it into reverse. Camera quality is freaking amazing, man. You can’t zon Nissan’s camera quality. I mean the 360 we got beautiful wide angle. Look at this. Clear as day. You don’t have to worry about curbing those wheels. And then we’re right back where we started. I could even do the forward facing camera if you want. There we are at the front. You can see through the hood, which is kind of cool when you’re parking. Really nice angles. Oh, Steven’s favorite, the sit and spin. There we go. 360. It’s like playing uh playing some old video game from like 1998. But nice to have it in the new Leaf. Now, working your way down, you got a real volume knob. You do have your um one pedal operation. They call it Estep. And then you do have the D mode. The D is not what you think. It’s drive modes. Push button selection for your single speed gearbox. Down below you got two large cup holders, a place to put two boxes of candy cigarettes, and then there is your Nissan FOB. Nice touch. Another thing you’ll notice while we’re down here is look how low the floor is. Because this is an EV, really frees up the room in here. Two USBC’s, ambient lighting, wireless charging, soft touch. Open it up. What do we got in here? You actually have enough room to where you could put Stephven’s favorite. Uh I would say yeah, you could probably get a one pound bag of cashews. Stephen is a big cashews guy. If you’re wondering what this is, I know a lot of people call it the window sticker. Technically, they call it the Moroni. And if you want to know why they call it the Moroni is because there was a senator with the last name Moroni a long time ago that made it made a law to where well it was a bill and then it became a law to where all manufacturers had to have this stating what the price of the vehicle is and all the options uh and whatnot. So that’s why sometimes you might hear it in the business you’re it’s called a but to the lay person it’s called a window sticker. I’m trying to educate you or edimicate you. The seats the soft touch. You’ll notice the Bose speakers in the actual headrest. I do like the way they did the seats. Nice design with the navy blue. You do have manual controls for the passenger. But the great news is I have power controls for the driver. And then here’s the other bit of news. I’m gonna have Stephen kind of maybe duck down and see if we could do this here, but it has one of those posatron electron electrical charge glass roofs. So basically what it is is you can make it opaque or you can open it up all by the flip of a switch. So I’m going to go ahead and put in a drive. There it goes. See how it’s opening? Now it’s clear. Now it’s opaque. And it it’s actually slow. It says leaf here. You hit it like a sunroof. There’s the sun shades in pieces. Boom. Look at that. That’s pretty cool technology in a Nissan Leaf. But why don’t you come over here to the business end? I want to show you behind the blue and black steering wheel in this Nissan Leaf. All right, guys. Business time. Behind the wheel. You do have two memory seat settings, which is nice. There’s all your power seat controls. And these seats being those zeroravity seats, they feel fantastic. I feel like I’m sitting in outer space right now, just floating, floating away. I’m 6 feet tall, lots of headroom. Steering wheel, that single spoke that I think Nissan’s doing very well. You got the two-tone, the blue with the black. You do have thumb controls, and if you miss, you’re going to get fingerprints all over the place. You even have pro pilot assist, which is really nice. That’s that semiautonomous hands-free driving. Now, you do have paddles behind the wheel. That’s to adjust your regen braking. You also have a heated steering wheel button right here. And then it is a manual tilting and telescoping wheel. And then what’s nice is they give you just like a 12.3 in infotainment system. You got your 12.3 in digital gauge cluster. I could scroll through a cornucopia of different information, even bring up the maps, which is really nice. Oh, I love this song. I wish I could play it for you right now. But nice to have the selection of all the different information that you uh that you need or want or desire. I know Steven has certain desires. But on top of that, there’s a head-up display cuz this is the Platinum Plus. But pretty spacious in here. Let’s get in the back seat and see if your passengers are going to be happy that you went with this thing. All right, guys. Back seat time. And I think the goal here is to give you a lot of headroom. And guess what? Check that box right off. Lots of headroom back here. And a lot of it has to do with look how low that floor is. No tunnel or anything like that. You do have the soft touch. And I like the way they put the black because we all know your kids are going to pick their nose and wipe it on this. You don’t want it to to leave a mark on the nice lighter color. Now, you do have large pockets. You could put easily I would say four boxes of Mike and I. And that’s the thing is is that I’m a firm believer. You got you got to do what you got to do to save money. So, if you’re going to the movies, instead of buying their $25 box of Mike and I, just go to the dollar store and get yourself the Mike and I. What’s funny is is there’s a local AMC over here in Olmar and uh there’s a dollar store right in the same parking lot. So, bingo. I wonder if they did that on purpose. Back of the command center, you have not only one, two, but three stages of heated seats, two USBC’s. I like the way they did the AC vents, the design of them. And then even down below, you got a home power source, which is really nice. But like I said, sitting here, you got the same cloth. Not my favorite, but the armrests are nice and soft. Pull this bad boy down. Oo, it’s like a big marshmallow. Two cup holders, and then the two-tone. But why don’t we go ahead? Let’s get to the cargo area and see if this Leaf has the room that you need. All right, guys. Cargo area time. You’re going to hit the button, nice electric assist, and you’re going to be greeted to a pretty good usable amount of room. So, what do we got going on here? You’re basically looking at with the rear seat up 20 cubic feet of space. Fold the rear seat down and that’s a 60/40 split. You’ll have 56 cubic feet of space. I like the way they have these nooks here. You could put a gallon of chocolate milk here. And then on the passenger side, you got a perfect box of Twinkies that you could slide right in there. And then you do have a home power source. Now, the other bit of news is that if you go to Costco and you’re getting that 50 gallon drum of mustard, you might say to yourself, “Well, Joe, I can’t fit it in there. I’m going to have to lay it down.” Not necessarily. If you notice, we do have that ability where you could lower the floor. So, the floor in the cargo area actually goes down lower. You just got to make adjustments with the way that they have the panels here. But, why don’t we go ahead? Enough chitchat. Let’s see if Nissan has a winner. Let’s go for a drive and see just how good this Leaf is. All right, guys. We’re inside this 2026 Nissan Leaf Platinum Plush trim. And right away, you’re going to absolutely love the amount of interior space that’s in here. Very well laid out. Dash is very far forward. And they did a good job of keeping it quiet in here, too. Not too much road noise or wind noise. Remember, it’s always a challenge with an EV, especially if you’re trying to keep uh the price in check. You do have the paddles on the back of the wheel. You’ll notice on the left hand side there are triangles and less triangles means very little regen braking. And then the more triangles means that you have more regen braking. As soon as you get off throttle, it starts to break. Visibility is fantastic. Nice head-up display. And of course, you have the Nissan 360 shield of protection with all the safety features. But when you compare this to the previous Nissan Leaf, it’s leaps and bounds. so much better. I mean, so much better. Steering is actually pretty quick in this vehicle. And uh because you do have a lower center of gravity, the handling is actually not too shabby, just like a lot of other uh electrified vehicles. You have your D mode selector, different drive modes. We’re going to go into sport and then we’re going to go on throttle here. You ready? Let me uh see if I could come to a stop. Nobody’s behind us. Hard throttle. Here we go. So, like I said, it’s one of those vehicles that it’s not going to um blow your mind with the acceleration, but you have enough oomph to get out of your own way, which is good, and to be able to merge and and pull out in front of uh traffic and do it in a safe and quick manner. One thing’s for certain, if you are one of the first in your era to get one of these, you are going to get a lot of attention. I mean, that uh that goes without saying because you just you just don’t see many of these around right now. And the unique look and especially this color really uh just pulls people’s attention in. like the way you could easily change the information on the dash to display whatever it is you need. And uh the materials feel nice in here. Even though this this cloth material isn’t my favorite, it still feels nice. But I think that for a style, it it it fits the the mold of an EV of what, you know, you would envision a EV to look like, an EV vehicle. And uh they’re definitely keeping the price point in check, especially with the lower trims with a starting price of $26,000. But like I said, the the handling of this vehicle is what’s really going to surprise you. It does handle very very well for the type of vehicle that it is. And it’s very, very easy to drive as well. But the seats are supportive, especially on a longer drive or if you’re sitting at a charging uh station. And like I said, DC fast charger, you’re looking at about 30 minutes to go from 10% battery life to 80% battery life. And what’s nice is I’ve been really driving this vehicle quite a bit this week that I’ve had it to Tampa. And uh the range is legit. It actually has been doing a great job with the range, especially with the regen braking. And you do have the ESEP, which is the one pedal operation. But I hope that this has been a good quick overall review of this all-new Nissan Leaf. We’re going to get back to where it all started and wrap this one up. So, I’ll see you in a split second. Hi, guys. Another great day, another hot day. I’m dripping sweat everywhere here in Florida. But another great day being able to bring you something all new, totally redesigned, third generation of the Nissan Leaf. We got to thank everybody at Nissan USA for allowing us access to this press vehicle. Let me know what you think. Has this surprised you what Nissan has done with the new Leaf? And do you think it’s still the most affordable, brand new, of course, out of all the EVs? Let me know in that comment section. But if you’re new to the channel, you’re on your way out. Hit that subscribe button. I promise you it’s worthwhile coming back for more. If you are a subscriber, thank you for being part of the Razer Rise family. We got to give it up to the soy, dripping wet Steven Flood. He’s got uh his special uh sponges ready to uh damp to make his head nice and dry and not so wet. So uh we’ll get you those sponges, Stephen. And if you’re wondering, Stephen is Greek. At least that’s what he tells people. And he goes down to the tarp and sponge docks and gets the natural sponges. He doesn’t use artificial sponges. Thank you, Stephen, for your hard work. Just like always guys, I’ll see you on the next
The Leaf gets a total redesign for 2026 from Nissan. On the outside you will discover an all new color, 19in wheels and panoramic glass roof. The inside greets you with a 2-tone interior. Powering the Leaf is a single electric motor. The NEW 2026 Nissan Leaf is the MOST affordable EV!
**Please click the link to get your Raiti’s Rides Merch!
https://shop.spreadshirt.com/raitisrides/
videography: Steven Flood 🎥
