Nissan Leaf review

Tall folk are unlikely to grumble about the amount of space at the front. Even though the seats are mounted quite high up in the car, there’s loads of head room and you’d have to be seriously lanky to want more leg room.

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The door bins are a decent size and there’s another small cubby in front of the gear selector – this is useful for stowing a phone or a set of keys. If you like a cup of coffee in the morning, you’ll also appreciate the two decent-sized cupholders between the front seats.

There’s more rear leg room than in any direct rival, but anyone tall would much rather sit in the back of a Volkswagen e-Golf. Why? Well, because rear head room in the Leaf is a bit tight – to the point that anyone over six feet tall will have to cower to fit. That said, things aren’t nearly as tight as they are in the back of a Renault Zoe.

The e-Golf is also the better bet if you regularly need to carry three people in the back, thanks to its broader rear-seat area. The Leaf’s rear door bins are quite small, though.

There’s not a lot to get excited about here. The Leaf’s rear seatbacks fold down in a 60/40 split, but that’s the case in the majority of rivals (except the Zoe, in which the rear seatback folds in one cumbersome piece).

The front passenger seat is height-adjustable and can be adjustable electrically on range-topping Tekna trim. However, there’s no adjustable lumbar support – not even on the options list.

The Leaf beats its closest peers for luggage space; it managed to swallow seven carry-on suitcases in our tests, compared with the six you can fit in the Zoe or e-Golf. That’s mainly because the Leaf’s boot is much longer than its rivals’.

The space isn’t particularly clever, though; there’s an enormous lip at the boot entrance and a step in the floor of the extended load bay when you fold down the rear seats. However, there are handy nets at each side of the boot for keeping the charging cables neatly tucked away.

The range-topping Tekna model gets a Bose sound system that uses some of the boot space for its whopping great amplifier.