AutoConnect_Magazine February 2016 | Page 11

Stepping into an electric vehicle is still somewhat of an oddity, even for a car journalist. Although the technology is growing with more companies developing electric vehicles, and therefore more people buying them, they remain a niche player in the market.

There are numerous reasons for that, from the cost to buy, the newness of the technology and, rightly or wrongly, the perception that they can't match a combustion engine vehicle in terms of practicality.

And it's the last of those that Nissan is aiming to chip away at with the release of its latest Leaf vehicle.

Probably the best selling electric car on the market, and having been on the road for five years, the Japanese firm has made a lot of breakthroughs with its first mass produced EV. And it continues.

Range has been one of the arguments against electric cars because on a single charge of the battery you can only travel around 100 miles – much less than if you have a full tank of petrol in your daily around around. But Nissan has increased that range to 155 miles with its latest Leaf iteration.

You might shout that still isn't comparable, but when statistics show an average car journey is considerably lower than that, the arguments against EVs begin to erode.

The increase in range is thanks to a new 30kWh battery, compared to the original 24kWh pack the car had. The size in kilowatt hours is the equivalent to how big your fuel tank is – the bigger it is, the further you can go.

Testing the new Leaf in the south of France, driving up the Col de Turini and its 5,272ft (1,607m) of elevated mountain roads seemed like a strange place for Nissan to show off its new car. But it did highlight something interesting.

Going up an slope is going to drain power, whether it's being supplied by burning petrol or battery stored electricity. But the advantage an EV has is it can recuperate energy on the way down. So you might reach the summit with very little juice left, but on the return leg, you can recharge some of the power, refilling the battery, as gravity brings you back down to sea level.

And it's a game, as you try and keep the charge levels for as long as possible – but without driving as if you're in a funeral procession – with a beady eye on the instrument cluster and the battery charge status.

It's also nice to be able to drive in such gorgeous surroundings without the constant headache of hearing a combustion engine straining to provide enough go power to get up a slope. Unless it's a vee-engine, most don't surround you in aural delight.

And underneath are the same suspension technologies you'll find in any similar sized hatchback, with similar performance levels too. You'll hit 62mph from standing in 11.5 seconds and that top speed is 90mph, but the figures are provided from the car's 109bhp (80kW)/187lb-ft (254Nm) electric motor.

That means that refinement, ride and handling are on a par with anything else, and cabin noise is much less. Noise really is restricted to tyres and wind.

Electric vehicles, and battery technology specifically, have a long way to go before they can offer the equivalent ranges of traditional vehicles, but it's the incremental developments that companies such as Nissan are making, that will eventually getting them there, making cars such as the Leaf much less of an oddity.