Carlos Ghosn, the CEO of Nissan, recently announced that the next Leaf EV would get newly developed batteries that are reportedly going to double its range. He made the statement on Japanese TV, but there seem to be no records of that, only this article by Tokyo-based Daily Kanban.
Nissan looks to be guarding the secret very carefully, but apparently double the range apparently means 400 km or 249 miles. We don’t know if that will come via a battery pack that’s double in capacity (48 kWh would bring it much closer to Tesla) courtesy of new tech that’s currently getting its final touches.
If they add other charge-saving technologies, and make it even more effective at cutting through the air, we can start to believe that it will, in fact, be rated at 400 km. That seems unlikely now, given that, in the US, the Leaf is rated at 84 miles, which equates to 135 km.
The numbers presented in the source article are most certainly based on the Japanese efficiency test cycle, which usually yields more optimistic results than what we’re used to in the US and Europe. In Japan, the Leaf’s range is currently rated at 228 km or 141 miles.
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