Nissan Ariya 87kWh

FIRST DRIVE Our Car of the Year gets a bigger battery

- John Mcllroy

WHEN is a flagship not a flagship? That's the question that you might ask yourself when considering an electric car and it's certainly a quandary that applies to our current Car of the Year, the Nissan Ariya.

Our initial verdict on the all-electric SUV was based on a version with front-wheel drive, 215bhp and a 63kWh battery. But since then, the Ariya's range has expanded to include larger batteries and more powerful motors, including a supposed range-topper with four-wheel-drive e-4orce technology. If you want, in fact, you can spec the Nissan up to a creation with an 87kWh battery and 302bhp and there's a more potent Performance edition coming with 389bhp.

And yet, good though the initial Ariya line-up was, the car we're driving has the potential to raise its bar even higher. It's the 87kWh Evolve, which mixes the larger battery capacity with just a single front-mounted motor that produces 239bhp.