EVs have been wowing us with their snappy acceleration for over a decade, but until recently automakers mostly haven’t tried to market them as performance cars or dressed them up with the same kind of sporty visual touches we expected from fast ICE cars.
But that’s changing with the arrival of cars like the M50 and M60 versions of BMW’s i4 and i5, and the N variant of Hyundai’s popular Ioniq 5. And soon, we’ll be able to mention the Nissan Ariya in the same breath. The electric SUV has been around for a couple of years and is pretty punchy in its most potent dual-motor form, but it looks like Nissan is working on an even faster Nismo variant to crown the range.
Spotted again near the Nurburgring a couple of months after our photo contacts first spied it there, the Ariya was caught taking a breather at a Tesla supercharger, giving the man behind the camera plenty of opportunity to capture it from every angle.
Related: Sporty 2024 Nissan Ariya NISMO Caught Testing At The Nurburgring
Compared with a regular family-spec Ariya, this new performance variant has a new style of front bumper with stretched intakes ahead of each front wheel and a deeper splitter jutting into the airflow. The rear spoiler at the top of the hatch appears to be the same as the one on the stock car, but the prototype adds a lip at the base of the back window and pairs it with an aerodynamically styled lower bumper and diffuser combo.
We don’t get to see inside, but we imagine this Ariya is rocking a smart set of bucket seats to help keep the driver in place when he’s testing the cornering limits of the 20-inch Michelin Pilot Sport rubber. And though this car isn’t wearing any Nismo badges, it seems likely that some will be applied by the time it makes production, presumably during 2024.
But how much more power will Nissan give its Nismo EV? The fastest Ariya in the current lineup kicks out 389 hp (395 PS / 290 kW) and reaches 60 mph in 4.8 seconds, which isn’t bad in isolation, but when the Tesla Model Y Performance and Hyundai Ioniq 5 N can do the job in as little as 3.4 seconds, you know Nissan is going to have to make some big changes to do that Nismo name justice.
