2023 Nissan Ariya Reviews, Pricing & Specs

With the exception of the Ford F-150 Lightning, every top-tier electric vehicle on sale today boasts innovative, expressive styling. The Ford Mustang Mach-E, Hyundai Ioniq 5, Kia EV6, and Genesis GV60 are not vehicles you’ll confuse for a boring gas-powered SUV. It’s no surprise, then, that the 2023 Nissan Ariya flaunts a modern and striking design.

Nissan eschews creases and angles almost completely with the Ariya. From the side, the overwhelming shape on display is “oval.” The crossover's front and rear ends slope smoothly but quickly away from the roof’s high point. With the exception of a character line at the rear-quarter, there’s hardly a horizontal line anywhere on the car.

At the front, thin LED headlights are supported by diagonal arrays of LED running lights and turn signals. The front grille—or really, the black space where a traditional grille would be—mimics the company’s “V-Motion” design language, and an illuminated Nissan emblem sits in the centre. At the rear, a thin taillight spans the width, and “NISSAN” lettering sits above the license plate bracket. The rear strongly resembles the back of the 2023 Lexus NX, but otherwise, this is a vehicle with truly unique design.

Inside, the Ariya reveals beautiful craftsmanship and care. There’s very little cheap, hard plastic, and the dashboard looks beautifully simplistic. Dual 12-inch monitors (one concave, one convex) display all necessary information, and the illuminated haptic buttons below the infotainment touchscreen look incredibly modern.

Lighting hidden within Japanese Kumiko-inspired housings lends some ambience to the Ariya’s interior, and though we didn’t get to test the car at night, we can only imagine that their impact is amplified in the dark. Further, because the Ariya doesn’t have a transmission tunnel, the interior feels incredibly open and airy.

There will be a range of trim levels offered in Canada in 2023: Engage, Venture+, Evolve e-4ORCE, Evolve+ FWD, Platinum+ e-4ORCE, and Premiere e-4ORCE; trims not labeled e-4ORCE are front-wheel drive (FWD) and those identified as e-4ORCE are all-wheel drive (AWD). We were fortunate to test two versions of the Ariya, a FWD version and the Platinum+ with e-4ORCE AWD. Both offered eight-way power adjustment for the driver’s seat and four-way for the front passenger, but neither seemed to suffer from the limited adjustment options.

From a comfort perspective, our primary complaint is that the centre armrest and the door armrests are positioned at different heights. It would take a pretty broad driver to use both armrests at the same time (it’s a spacious cabin), but the delta between the armrest levels was noticeable and unpleasant, nonetheless.

Nissan’s trim lineup for the Ariya is confusing, to put it lightly. At the lowest trim level, you’ll find the Ariya Engage FWD. This model sports a 63-kilowatt-hour (kWh) lithium-ion battery pack and a 160-kilowatt (kW) AC synchronous single motor good for 214 horsepower and 221 lb-ft of torque, sent to the front wheels.

Above the Engage trim, there’s the Evolve e-4ORCE with the same smaller battery but a second motor for a total of 335 hp and 413 lb-ft of torque. Next is the Venture+ FWD (an extended-range battery plus a more powerful 178-kW motor making 238 hp and 221 lb-ft). The Evolve+ FWD is next with the same setup as Venture+, then the Platinum+ e-4ORCE adds a second motor for 389 hp and 442 lb-ft. The limited-edition Premiere e-4ORCE (which, perplexingly, drops the “+” designation but keeps the extended-range battery), sits at the top of the heap with the same power specs as the Platinum+. Confused?

FWD models beat the AWD trims to launch, but all Ariya models are now ready for sale, and according to Nissan representatives, dealers are showing keen interest to get them stocked on their car lots.

With an 87-kWh battery, Nissan expects the Ariya will charge from 20% to 80% in 40 minutes on a 130-kW DC fast charger. With the smaller battery, that charging time should take only 35 minutes with Level 3 fast charging station feeding the charge port.

We were pleased with the FWD Ariya’s performance on the road and thrilled with its efficiency. This isn’t a hyper-powerful electric crossover like the top-spec Mustang Mach-E GT or even the dual-motor Hyundai Ioniq 5, but it still feels quick and spritely, even if it doesn’t offer the sort of mind-bending acceleration EVs have become known for. The steering is quick and direct and, despite the Ariya’s size and weight, body roll is nicely managed.

We drove our FWD test vehicle on well-paved roads, so it didn’t get a true pot-hole test like the ones we’d complete in Canada, but we still walked away happy with the comfortable suspension. Road and wind noise are also well dampened, even in highway driving. The Ariya is a delightfully quiet vehicle.

Our time with the Ariya Platinum+ AWD was similarly pleasant, but with a significant amount of added power. The dual-motor powertrain in AWD Ariyas increases horsepower to 389 and it doubles torque to 442 pound-feet. Acceleration drops from 7.2 seconds in a 0-60 mph sprint down to just 4.8 seconds. (0 to 100 km/h times are not published.)

Accelerating onto the highway was no problem for our Ariya e-4ORCE. Better still, Nissan has engineered some trick torque-split tuning with this AWD system, allowing the Ariya to send a disproportionate amount of power to the outside wheels when turning, giving a driving experience with phenomenal grip regardless of surface conditions. The vehicle’s pitch and the sense of nose-dive is also mitigated under hard braking, as the AWD Ariya can pull back on power delivered to the wheels, rather than just engaging its brakes and letting inertia take effect.

Nissan offers three drive modes in the Ariya: Eco, Standard, and Sport. Switching to Sport mode adds a boost in performance at first, but it falls away and fades quickly. We recommend keeping the Ariya in Normal or Eco mode, where it excels. There is also an auto-parking function, which can autonomously park the Ariya in perpendicular and parallel spots.

Along our drive route with the FWD Ariya, we averaged roughly 5.6 kilometres per kWh, which would translate to a bit beyond 350 kilometres of range, confirming Nissan and Natural Resources Canada’s estimate of 346 kilometres. In the AWD Ariya with the smaller battery, we saw roughly 4.8 km per kWh, translating to roughly 300 km of range.

It’s not the case for all electric vehicles—retrofitted gasoline cars like the Hyundai Kona don’t apply—but one benefit of the ground-up EV architecture is that it frees up lots of space on a vehicle’s interior. The Nissan Ariya is no exception. The airy openness makes the Ariya feel bigger than it is. Both front and rear passengers have plenty of legroom. And although headroom feels a bit tight in back due to the Ariya’s big moonroof, the lack of a transmission tunnel makes it still feel like a mobile living room.

Given the airy interior, there’s not quite as much trunk space in cars like the Ariya as we’d instinctively expect. Total cargo space measures 1,670 litres behind the front seats, putting it on par with the Hyundai Ioniq 5 and Ford Mustang Mach-e, but well behind the max capacity of a Nissan Rogue, Hyundai Tucson, or Ford Escape.

Nissan has fitted the Ariya with a few interior party tricks. First, a powered bin slides out under the centre stack in the dash. It’s large enough to hold phones, snacks, notebooks, and plenty of other knick-knacks, but because it’s integrated into the dashboard, it takes up very little space in the cabin. The bin is controlled via a haptic button on the centre console, which also features power adjustability. A pair of buttons on the driver’s side allow you to slide the console forward or back, making it easy to adjust for drivers of different sizes. Other buttons on the centre console control the Ariya’s drive modes, auto-parking function, and e-Step regenerative braking mode. On our first go in the FWD Ariya, we did notice that each of these took a fair bit of pressure to operate, but that quirk looks like it was specific to our pre-production test vehicle, as we had no issues whatsoever in the Ariya Platinum+ AWD.

When it comes to technology, Nissan claims its overarching goal is to inform, connect, protect, and assist its customers. The Ariya employs dual 12-inch displays—one for driver information like speed and range, and one for general infotainment.

The screens themselves are beautifully crisp and bright, and their physical connection to one another is gorgeously executed. The driver-information display is concave and flows naturally to the convex infotainment screen.

Wireless Apple CarPlay comes standard on all Ariya trims, although Android Auto (also standard) requires a wired connection. Nissan is including a head-up display on all but the bottom two trims, too.

The Ariya promises to work as an extension of a connected home, with Alexa compatibility. Simply say “Hey Nissan” to prompt the system and you’ll be able to turn on your Alexa-connected smart lights, thermostat, or other devices. Similarly, if you have an Alexa smart speaker in your home, you can prompt it to start your Ariya, too.

The Ariya is noticeably more tech-forward than Nissan’s other models. It runs a full-featured infotainment software that combines plenty of features with an easy-to-use interface. Best of all, it looks modern—something that can’t be said for some of the company’s other infotainment systems.

The Nissan Ariya expands its tech-focused approach to safety equipment. ProPilot Assist, the company’s flagship advanced driver assistance system (ADAS), launched in 2018 with the Rogue. The 2021 Rogue added extended-stop capability and speed-limit recognition via ProPilot Assist with Navi-link.

Nissan fits all 2023 Ariyas with automatic emergency braking, blind-spot monitoring, a driver-attention monitor, and traffic-sign recognition.

Neither the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) nor the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) has crash-tested the 2023 Ariya. It generally takes some time for those ratings to publish, however, so the lack of crash-test evaluations is not necessarily a reason for concern.

Considering the number of trim levels available on the 2023 Nissan Ariya electric SUV, it comes as no surprise that the price range spans quite a large amount. At the base level, the Ariya Engage FWD opens with a new vehicle MSRP of $55,843, including the destination charge. The Platinum+ AWD trim level, on the other end, starts at $72,043.

While the Nissan Ariya qualifies for the federal iZEV rebate as well as provincial incentives where they exist, this pricing is still significantly higher than its major competitors such as the IONIQ 5 and Kia EV6.

The 2023 Ford Mustang Mach-E, on the other hand, costs more than the Ariya—although, admittedly, the top-spec Mustang Mach-E GT is on a different planet from the Ariya, performance wise.

However, the Ariya does include a number of features as standard equipment that cost extra in the competition. Namely, the head-up display (HUD), heated rear seats, heated steering wheel, and power-folding mirrors are all typically luxury items, but they’re included at no extra cost on certain Ariyas. With the e-4ORCE AWD system, the Nissan Ariya is one of the more impressive EV on the market, too.

Nissan’s latest EV is competitive amongst the segment’s best options, and its price is higher than average but compelling enough to win prospective buyers. Most notably, however, is that the Ariya comes from a trusted brand in the electric-vehicle space, and one with more than a decade of experience building and servicing these new powertrains—something sure to calm the nerves of shoppers looking to make the leap to an electric car.

Note: Images show a US model.