2025 Nissan Ariya NISMO First Drive: Subtle Upgrades Bring More Feel
Our first taste of Nissan's NISMO-ized Ariya shows that a few minor upgrades can result in a lot more fun.
It's an age-old pursuit: taking an economical, environmentally friendly machine and turning it into something livelier. Endless excellent hot hatches and pint-sized performance machines have been borne from this simple concept. But in the era of the EV, it's getting a little more complicated to ratchet up the fun factor.
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Different companies have tried various approaches with varying levels of success, with Tesla's Model 3 Performance and Hyundai's Ioniq 5 N among the more engaging. The Tesla is a blast thanks to the extra power and revised stability systems that allow you to use it. The Hyundai, on the other hand, is a riot thanks to its endless configurability and a fake shifting algorithm that’s somehow great. (Seriously, don't knock it 'til you've tried it.)
Can the Ariya NISMO follow suit? The upgrades applied to Nissan's Ariya EV are far more subtle but still quite effective.
Forbidden Fruit
When it came time for Nissan to turn up the wick on its all-electric Ariya, the company took a different approach, not adding much in the way of power or any gimmicks. Instead, the Ariya NISMO is a machine that very much stays within the lines of its pedestrian predecessor, adding just enough personality with uprated looks, sounds, and feels to make it worth considering.
Now, to be clear, Nissan doesn’t offer the Ariya NISMO in the United States and officially has no plans to offer it here as of this writing. But the company was kind enough to throw me the keys to one at Japan’s famed Fuji Speedway to sample what we're missing.
And just what are we missing? More power, for one thing. The regular Ariya maxes out at 389 hp and 442 lb-ft of torque with the bigger, 91-kWh battery. Step up to the NISMO, and that increases to 429 hp, with torque staying at 442 from the same dual-motor configuration as the regular car. But how that power is delivered is a fair bit different.
The NISMO Effect
Nissan engineers retuned the car's e4ORCE dual-motor system to create a greater rearward power bias. In a traditional AWD car with internal combustion, that would entail fiddling with or replacing the center differential to send a greater portion of the engine's output to the rear.
In a dual-motor EV configuration, there is no differential. So how do you change the power split between the front and rear without derating the front motor? I asked Satoshi Komiya, VP of Nissan Motorsports & Customizing Co, who oversaw the development of the Ariya NISMO.
According to Komiya, in the interest of greater stability, the non-NISMO car leaves a little on the table at the rear. "Actually, the normal Ariya has a bit more potential for more rear torque and power," he said. For the NISMO, Nissan simply turned up the wick at the back, resulting in a car that feels more lively when cornering.
That extra power shift happens in a new drive mode, aptly called NISMO, which joins the other modes of Snow, Eco, and Normal. On the tight and twisty Fuji short circuit, the Ariya was already quite fun squirting out of the hairpin bends and through the many little chicanes. But dialed up to NISMO mode, everything got that much more engaging.
Room to Play
The throttle response is sharper in NISMO mode, sure, meaning a small push on the go-pedal resulted in an extra dose of accelerative immediacy. Similar overall power, yes, but the sensation is that of a quicker car.
But even more impressive than that was how playful the car became in this mode. Your average EV has absolutely no desire to let you engage in the slightest bit of shenanigans. Should you spin up any wheel for just a moment, you'll often find power is completely and immediately cut.
In NISMO mode, the Ariya was happy to let me power through a bit of wheelspin, even some light oversteer. No, I was hardly drifting the thing, but it's a rare treat to keep your foot in it and drive yourself out of trouble in an EV. At least, not without pulling some fuses or disconnecting sensors.
That made me feel more confident in pushing the car, working my own way out of trouble and enjoying the extra feel afforded by the 20-inch Enkei wheels. Their short sidewalls help boost steering response and deliver far more communication from the road surface. The Ariya NISMO genuinely earns top marks in this regard.
Meeting the Road
Indeed, much of the car's improvement is due to the tire. The Ariya NISMO runs on Michelin Pilot Sport EV rubber, a significantly sportier compound than the standard Ariya's Dunlop Grandtrek tires. Also used on other high-end EVs like the Mercedes-Benz EQE SUV and Cadillac Celestiq, this compound is designed to offer the same sort of feel and response Pilot Sports have become known for while also delivering the kind of efficiency gains EV owners demand.
I can't speak for the latter because I wasn't exactly going for maximum range out on the track. But when it comes to feel and performance, the Michelins absolutely delivered. I've tried tracking EVs on low-rolling-resistance tires before, and it's usually a recipe for frustration. Frustration and lots of noise as the rock-hard rubber screams for mercy through every turn.
The Pilot Sport EVs certainly start talking when you've pushed them beyond their limits, but it's the sort of encouraging squeal you expect from a performance-oriented tire. The grip characteristics of the Michelins remain high even when you've moved past the coefficient of static friction and well into the slip zone.
Nissan's Komiya told me that, when developing the car (a process that took two years), the team started with the tires first and worked from there. The suspension has also been subtly revised, still MacPherson up front and multilink out back, but now featuring stiffer springs, dampers, and anti-roll bars.
With more grip, stiffer suspension, and more willing software, the Ariya NISMO is genuinely a more engaging car to drive. It comes with a soundtrack to match. Nissan sampled the straight-cut gearbox and electric motor of its Formula E racer and used those tunes to create a synthetic engine note that ‘s evocative without trying to ape internal combustion.
It's not as engaging as all the acoustic histrionics of Hyundai's Ioniq 5 N, but the connection between the Ariya NISMO and Nissan's electric motorsports efforts give this machine some bonus points.
Visual Tweaks
The interior has been subtly refined, still carrying the same basic, understated, wood-grained interior that makes the base Ariya feel classy. Everything is dark and flat, with some moody red backlighting helping to highlight the new NISMO badge on the dash. The seats are wrapped in perforated microfiber, which looks and feels great, but they don't change the overall ergonomics, which position you quite high. In my track sessions, I was chasing a Skyline NISMO, and I felt like I was looking down at the performance sedan from a pedestal.
Exterior tweaks are more significant, including a pronounced front lip, rear diffuser, and a spoiler that wraps around the rear hatch. Nissan says these decrease lift by 40 percent, but keep in mind that's still short of actually generating downforce. And although the 20-inch Enkei wheels do look nice, they just provide a greater window to look at the puny brakes, which Nissan opted to not upgrade.
After getting some seat time in the GT-R NISMO and Fairlady Z NISMO, it's safe to say this all-electric variant of Nissan's special performance editions isn't anywhere near as hard-edged as either. But that also means it's far less compromised. Drop it down into normal mode, and it's every bit as comfortable and easy to drive as a regular Ariya, only giving up a bit in the ride quality department.
What's the Cost?
All that comes at a slight increase in price. Where a top-spec Ariya with the bigger battery starts at roughly $57,500 in Japan, the NISMO edition starts at $63,100. That makes it considerably more expensive than a Hyundai Ioniq 5 N, which is roughly $57,350 in Nissan's home market. But, as ever, pricing is very market dependent. In the U.K., the Ariya NISMO can be had for nearly £10,000, or $12,700 less than the Hyundai.
Ignoring pricing, it's hard to argue that the Ioniq 5 N or Model 3 Performance offer more performance. They're certainly faster. We clocked the Hyundai going to 60 in just 2.8 seconds while Tesla claims the latest Model 3 Performance will do it in 2.9 seconds. The Ariya NISMO, on the other hand, takes a full 5.0 seconds to get there according to Nissan (we clocked an AWD Ariya to 4.8 seconds in our testing). But special editions like this are as much about their emotional appeal and draw as anything, and of those three, the Ariya is the only one with some legitimate motorsports ties to pull upon.
Does that make it worth the extra cost? For now, it's not worth fretting too hard on that question. While Komiya told me that "One of our goals is to provide NISMO all over the world," Nissan currently has no plans to bring the Ariya NISMO to the U.S. market. Fun as it may be, this piece of electrified forbidden fruit looks set to stay that way for now.
