CarBrandLogos archive · Nissan · 2020
Nissan's second act in electric cars, a decade after its first.
Discover the storyPhoto: Vauxford · CC BY-SA 4.0
The story
Explore the ideas, engineering and context that shaped the Nissan Ariya, then continue into its specifications and place in the marque's lineage.
01
Having built the first mass-market electric car and then let its lead slip away, Nissan needed a serious follow-up. This was it: a compact crossover on the CMF-EV platform shared with Renault, with a liquid-cooled battery in place of the Leaf's air-cooled pack and, on twin-motor versions, the e-4orce system that shuffles torque between the axles and uses the motors to smooth pitch under braking.
Nissan Ariya Concept rear · TTTNIS · CC0
02
The design, led by Takashi Utsunomiya and Kazuki Aoyama, leaned on Japanese motifs rather than futurism for its own sake, with a blanked-off shield where the grille used to be and a cabin built around a flat floor, a sliding centre console and haptic controls concealed under a wood-effect dash panel until the car is switched on.
Nissan Ariya Concept · TTTNIS · CC0
03
Timing worked against it. Revealed in 2020, it did not reach production until January 2022 because of the semiconductor shortage, by which point the segment had filled up with rivals. Nissan built it at Tochigi in Japan and at Wuhan for the Chinese market, and North American sales ran only through the 2025 model year.
Nissan ARIYA single seater concept, 2021 · Kazyakuruma · CC0
04
It is a better car than its sales record suggests, and its main problem was arriving in a market that had stopped waiting.
At a glance
Produced
2022–presentBody
5-door SUVTechnical specification
Badge at launch
This is the marque emblem that accompanied the Ariya's era. The full identity timeline is documented in the brand archive.
Explore the logo history →From the journal
Contemporaries from the 2020s
Spotted something wrong on this page? Send us the correction — with a source, and we will fix it. How this site is written.
