Wanted to share my opinion on the Ariya after living with it for a year. I hope this helps someone in determining whether this is a good vehicle for them or not. This is not a full on review but just some points that I feel are important to someone selecting a vehicle.
Quick background (this is long), I'm a driver. I love driving. I have a Sport solo license to run on track in the U.S.A. solo. I have a dedicated track car. I enjoy driving a manual transmission but don't like it for a daily so my daily has a dual clutch transmission. I also work on my own vehicles, to save money and because most shops these days can't fix something without breaking something else.
My wife and I are early EV drivers, our first EV was a 2013 Nissan Leaf we purchased new. Short story, we love the car. It is likely the best and most reliable vehicle we have ever and will ever own to date. Directly after purchasing I immediately installed coilovers and G35 wheels, 17X8 square setup.
The Leaf was trouble free for 4.5 years of ownership and I drove it like I drive all of my other cars. Like a normal car. We hauled all kinds of oversized items in it, drove it in all kinds of weather. I put 66k miles on it. Eventually I passed it on to my 78+ year old dad in Texas who still has it with 80K+ miles. Eventually the Leaf will end up back in my hands.
We waited a very long time to get into another EV. Next up we tried the 2023 BMW I4 M50. We went with this due to power, size and range. The cost was also extremely reasonable at the time.
We had high expectations for the M50 after coming off of the Leaf.
It was a disappointment for me (us), I expected to be 10 years better than the 10 year old EV we had experienced and it wasn't.
Car wise it no longer felt like a car but a computer pretending to be a car (think Tesla), it was also very heavy and showed it easily. My wife loved the power and she actually like more than half of the technology but it broke down on us once (and that's all it takes) after eight months of ownership and and she immediately said "The Leaf never did this". That was it.
The fact we needed a bigger car to haul the whole family couple with the annoyances the M50 gave me made it an easy decision to let the M50 go.
We traded the M50 and another BMW for the Ariya.
We chose the Ariya because it was the vehicle with the least amount of "smart" tech and it still drove like a real "car".
Define real car- that's subjective.
One month in the Ariya had the 12V battery drain while at the PPF shop. Funny enough (for those who as superstitious around here) it happened right at 666 miles.
Had the Ariya towed to the dealer and they replaced the 12V battery. I don't know if the battery died because it was just time (and due to the fact the hood was left open for a long time and no one knew, including myself, that the hood could not be left open for extended periods of time without killing the 12V battery!) or because the PPF shop tried to jumpstart it so many times that it killed the battery.
Either way, it's been a year since that happened and we've had no problems with the vehicle.
It's been great overall.
I installed coilovers on it and replaced the wheels/tires. Few other things here and there but otherwise it's stock, or as we call it in the mod world OEM+.
Now on to the review...
The Ariya is still very much a car and it drives as such.
Feedback that I have are:
Driving wise-
The brake pedal feel is numb. The switch from regen to mechanical I feel is too "late" or separated from the pedal. It's difficult to judge what the brakes are actually doing. The M50 was better but more clunky. The 2013 Leaf was perfect.
Steering is excellent. I like the feedback from the tires to the steering wheel. This is what makes this such a nice driving vehicle. The only thing, maybe better, is the M50 at this time.
Acceleration from a standstill could be improved but I quite like the acceleration from 30-50mph and up. It's excellent. Nissan did this on purpose. I get it.
Interior wise-
The finish is great (not excellent), I would say ABOVE above average.
Lighting on the doors should have continued to the rear doors. What were they thinking?
The adjustable center console was a terrible idea to implement into a production vehicle. We moved it once and have never moved it again. Waste of money, weight and space in our opinion.
The electronic center glove box thing. Could have also done without that, a lockable secondary glove box with a push to retract feature would have been good enough. Again, waste of money and weight.
The touchscreen is like that free smartphone you get from your cel provider, okay maybe a bit better. It's slow and the screen is slow to respond to your touch. The M50 is lightyears ahead on this, too bad it's touch screen is cluttered and has too many windows to swipe through.
I wish they had more buttons and moved away from the touchscreen to control HVAC. It's dumb that you have to click into another screen to adjust HVAC or know what fan setting your at.
Exterior finish.
We love the styling and design.
The undercarriage could have been designed more aero than it is. as some of you already know some of the under panels are ready to fall off if your 9lb cat decides to crawl up into the vehicle.
Overall we love the Ariya. I am however preparing for the new M3 EV for 2027 as I want a car that can do it all. Drive 1/2 mile to the bus stop to drop my kid off. Go pick up groceries. Go the track for a track day. And sit in stop and go traffic and not feel like a caveman.
Quick background (this is long), I'm a driver. I love driving. I have a Sport solo license to run on track in the U.S.A. solo. I have a dedicated track car. I enjoy driving a manual transmission but don't like it for a daily so my daily has a dual clutch transmission. I also work on my own vehicles, to save money and because most shops these days can't fix something without breaking something else.
My wife and I are early EV drivers, our first EV was a 2013 Nissan Leaf we purchased new. Short story, we love the car. It is likely the best and most reliable vehicle we have ever and will ever own to date. Directly after purchasing I immediately installed coilovers and G35 wheels, 17X8 square setup.
The Leaf was trouble free for 4.5 years of ownership and I drove it like I drive all of my other cars. Like a normal car. We hauled all kinds of oversized items in it, drove it in all kinds of weather. I put 66k miles on it. Eventually I passed it on to my 78+ year old dad in Texas who still has it with 80K+ miles. Eventually the Leaf will end up back in my hands.
We waited a very long time to get into another EV. Next up we tried the 2023 BMW I4 M50. We went with this due to power, size and range. The cost was also extremely reasonable at the time.
We had high expectations for the M50 after coming off of the Leaf.
It was a disappointment for me (us), I expected to be 10 years better than the 10 year old EV we had experienced and it wasn't.
Car wise it no longer felt like a car but a computer pretending to be a car (think Tesla), it was also very heavy and showed it easily. My wife loved the power and she actually like more than half of the technology but it broke down on us once (and that's all it takes) after eight months of ownership and and she immediately said "The Leaf never did this". That was it.
The fact we needed a bigger car to haul the whole family couple with the annoyances the M50 gave me made it an easy decision to let the M50 go.
We traded the M50 and another BMW for the Ariya.
We chose the Ariya because it was the vehicle with the least amount of "smart" tech and it still drove like a real "car".
Define real car- that's subjective.
One month in the Ariya had the 12V battery drain while at the PPF shop. Funny enough (for those who as superstitious around here) it happened right at 666 miles.
Had the Ariya towed to the dealer and they replaced the 12V battery. I don't know if the battery died because it was just time (and due to the fact the hood was left open for a long time and no one knew, including myself, that the hood could not be left open for extended periods of time without killing the 12V battery!) or because the PPF shop tried to jumpstart it so many times that it killed the battery.
Either way, it's been a year since that happened and we've had no problems with the vehicle.
It's been great overall.
I installed coilovers on it and replaced the wheels/tires. Few other things here and there but otherwise it's stock, or as we call it in the mod world OEM+.
Now on to the review...
The Ariya is still very much a car and it drives as such.
Feedback that I have are:
Driving wise-
The brake pedal feel is numb. The switch from regen to mechanical I feel is too "late" or separated from the pedal. It's difficult to judge what the brakes are actually doing. The M50 was better but more clunky. The 2013 Leaf was perfect.
Steering is excellent. I like the feedback from the tires to the steering wheel. This is what makes this such a nice driving vehicle. The only thing, maybe better, is the M50 at this time.
Acceleration from a standstill could be improved but I quite like the acceleration from 30-50mph and up. It's excellent. Nissan did this on purpose. I get it.
Interior wise-
The finish is great (not excellent), I would say ABOVE above average.
Lighting on the doors should have continued to the rear doors. What were they thinking?
The adjustable center console was a terrible idea to implement into a production vehicle. We moved it once and have never moved it again. Waste of money, weight and space in our opinion.
The electronic center glove box thing. Could have also done without that, a lockable secondary glove box with a push to retract feature would have been good enough. Again, waste of money and weight.
The touchscreen is like that free smartphone you get from your cel provider, okay maybe a bit better. It's slow and the screen is slow to respond to your touch. The M50 is lightyears ahead on this, too bad it's touch screen is cluttered and has too many windows to swipe through.
I wish they had more buttons and moved away from the touchscreen to control HVAC. It's dumb that you have to click into another screen to adjust HVAC or know what fan setting your at.
Exterior finish.
We love the styling and design.
The undercarriage could have been designed more aero than it is. as some of you already know some of the under panels are ready to fall off if your 9lb cat decides to crawl up into the vehicle.
Overall we love the Ariya. I am however preparing for the new M3 EV for 2027 as I want a car that can do it all. Drive 1/2 mile to the bus stop to drop my kid off. Go pick up groceries. Go the track for a track day. And sit in stop and go traffic and not feel like a caveman.