Yahoo Autos 2023 Nissan Ariya Empower+ FWD Road Test: It’s nicer than you think
The 2023 Nissan Ariya is the nicest Nissan I’ve driven in, well, forever. If you removed the badges, it’d be easy to convince me this slick and attractive-looking crossover coupe is an Infiniti. And frankly, its silent and smooth powertrain makes it more refined and luxurious to drive than most Infiniti products these days, too. What I’m trying to get at here, is that the Ariya is not simply an electric Rogue or Murano. This is something else entirely, and that’s a very good thing.
Nissan kicks up the ambiance the moment you step foot into the flat-floored cabin. The cream and black two-tone in this test car meshes perfectly with the dark gray wood paneling that stretches from one side of the dash to the other. Unlike some cheaper Nissans, you won’t find any unsavory surfaces to touch or cheap buttons to press. Easily-dirtied piano black plastic is kept to a minimum on flat surfaces. Nissan is really drilling down into some of the details, too. The soft floor mats with fancy “Ariya” text on them are plush while looking fantastic, and all the backlit/flush “buttons” are beautiful to behold.
Some of the unique functional elements in the cabin are a little odd with dubious usefulness, though. The electrically-operated pull-out storage cubby that tucks into the dash feels needlessly complex at best, and simply annoying at worst. When I want to pop my wallet or a take-home box into a storage nook, I don’t want to wait for an electric cubby to whir out and back in to do so. The electrically-operated armrest is novel, but Hyundai’s solution in the Ioniq 5 of being able to just slide it back and forth via a lever is much more convenient and speedier. And yes, those touch buttons on the dash sure do look neat, but I couldn’t help but be a little annoyed when I try to adjust them while driving and I either miss the sensor or the button misreads my touch.
Despite some of these negatives, I still can’t help but to love the Ariya’s cabin. Wrap your hands around the rich-feeling leather wheel, brush your fingertips along the copper-colored trim and feast your eyes on the vibrant screens laid out in front of you. The Ariya’s price is shockingly high — coming in at $59,220 for this Empower+ model after options — but the cabin genuinely backs that price up.
Driving the Ariya is a tale of high highs and low lows. On the plus side, the refined ride and shocking quietness inside the Ariya is luxury-like. Nissan could brand this an Infiniti tomorrow, and it wouldn’t need anything to be improved from that perspective. The smoothness of the electric motor’s acceleration and silky steering give all the inputs a buttery effortlessness to them. Add an isolated yet well-damped and controlled ride to the equation, and the Ariya starts to look like a lovely daily driver. Just don’t mistake it for a sports crossover, because while handling is certainly superior to other Nissan SUVs, this is still a plush and comfort-first vehicle at heart.
Much of the frustration about driving the Ariya stems from the brakes, which isn’t what you’d expect from a company that’s been in the EV market for as long as Nissan has. The “E-Step” mode and “B” transmission mode increase regenerative braking power, but there’s no true one-pedal driving mode. Even the Leaf offers one-pedal driving with its E-Pedal, so it’s doubly embarrassing that Nissan doesn’t offer such a feature in its flagship EV product. The best way to brake the Ariya is with all of the assists off, because with them, Nissan programmed the brake pedal to perform the same ghost movements as Mercedes-EQ electric cars do. The car tries to match up the amount of regenerative braking force with corresponding brake pedal movement, so when you lift off the accelerator pedal, the brake pedal moves, which feels as unnatural as it sounds.
