LET me tell you a little secret.
This is the next Nissan Micra.
Honestly, it really is.
Underneath all that spicy race-car attitude and show-car scissor doors is a cute puppy-eyed city car to rival the Fiat 500e.
It will be electric, of course, and built alongside the reborn Renault 5 in France from 2025.
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Price? I reckon £20k.
Renault promised the new 5 will be a third cheaper to build than the current Zoe.
So Micra will be too.
How far will it go?
About 245 miles with the biggest 52kWh battery. Not as far with the smaller cheaper battery.
The petrol Micra went off sale earlier this year after 40 years as a popular low-cost runabout.
It was Britain’s favourite Nissan until Qashqai turned up and could do well again as a fresh and affordable EV.
Design boss Matt Weaver told me: “Micra through the generations has been super popular.
“Everyone has a story that can relate to that little car.
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First car. Parents’ car. Grandparents’ car.
It’s like a staple of the car industry almost.
“We want to make cars that will make you smile.
“So I can imagine as we look to the future of electrification we will look back at some of our past catalogue that was successful and will be using some of that character and personality for sure.”
Now you probably want to know why this show car is plonked on a canal barge in the little photo above.
That’s because Nissan has a design studio beside the Grand Union Canal in Paddington, London, where the mega-selling Qashqai and Juke were born.
The studio opened 20 years ago.
That’s the 20 bit in the show car’s official name 20-23. The 23 bit because “two” and “three” in Japanese sound like “Ni” and “San”.
It’s also the year 2023, innit.
Much easier just to say Micra.
NISSAN’S SWITCH
THE next Qashqai will be 100 per cent electric. Ditto Juke.
Nissan is sticking with plans to go full EV in Britain by 2030, despite Rishi pushing the ban on new petrols and diesels to 2035.
President Makoto Uchida said: “There’s no going back. We’re all in.
“We will not invest in any more internal combustion engines in Europe.
"The world needs to move on. From this point on, every single new Nissan model launched in Europe will be fully electric.”
Just to clarify. That doesn’t mean the current petrol-powered Qashqai and Juke will go off sale any time soon.
They will continue to be built in Sunderland for another five or six years.
It means the next-generation of the mega-selling crossovers being developed now will only be sold with a plug.
By 2030, bosses promised battery costs would be lower, putting EVs in the same price bracket as petrols.
Nissan’s Sunderland factory is having a £1billion upgrade to switch to EVs.
A new battery plant the size of 23 football pitches, and as tall as the Angel of the North, is being built.
There is enough land for it to more than treble in size.
Sunderland makes Qashqai, Juke and Leaf and is currently preparing to build the Leaf replacement.
