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By Jonathan Crouch

Nissan is back in the citycar segment with this little Pixo EV. Jonathan Crouch Crouch takes a look.

Ten Second Reviewword count: 33

Nissan enters the EV citycar sector with this little Pixo. Much is borrowed in its design, but nevertheless there's just a chance that the end result might be just what you're looking for.

Backgroundword count: 169

Nissan returns to the market's smallest segment with this little electric hatch, the Pixo. After years of waiting for the auto makers to bring us affordable charismatic little EV citycars, suddenly our showrooms seem to be stuffed with the things. It's some years since Japanese brand Nissan had a citycar of any kind to offer us - the last was the company's Pixo model, which sold between 2009 and 2013, a re-badged Suzuki Alto. The modern-era Pixo so we look at here is also a shared design, but this time its cousins are from within the Nissan Renault Alliance. This car rolls down the same Novo Mesto Slovenian production line as the model it's most closely based on, the Renault Twingo E-Tech electric; and also shares its engineering with a slightly cheaper rival, the second generation Dacia Spring. The Dacia is clearly differentiated from its Renault donor model; this Nissan less so. But the marque hopes it's done just enough to give this modern-era Pixo its own distinct character.

Engines and Tech Specword count: 350

If you've going to create a small EV citycar, then it's a pretty good idea to base it on model generally acknowledged to be the most fun to drive in the segment - as is the case here. Like its Renault Twingo donor design, this Pixo is one of the lightest EVs on the market, weighing in at just 1,200kg. That's all good for agile, nimble handling but the light weight has mostly been achieved by the installation of a very small battery, just 27.5kWh in size - and there's nothing bigger available. That in turn of course means a very restricted driving range, here rated at 161 miles. To give you some class perspective, that's better than a rival BYD Dolphin Surf but some way off the 175 mile figure you'd get from a cheaper Leapmotor T03. Still, at least the relative feather weight means that not much of a motor is required to push the Pixo along. This car's front-mounted unit develops 82hp with 175Nm of torque, which gets it to 62mph in 11.9s en route to a very modest 81mph maximum. The rear suspension is a fairly crude torsion beam arrangement but even so, you can expect ride quality to be excellent thanks to the soft springs and dampers that the light weight allowed the engineers to fit. The weight is sited low in the body, so there's no need for stiff suspension or thick anti-roll bars to reduce pitch and roll. And you can expect a reasonable amount of grip from the eco-centric tyres. As with the comparable Twingo, you might find the steering a little over-light, but of course you'll appreciate that in town, where it makes the car simple to manoeuvre into confined spaces and facilitates a tight 9.87-metre turning circle. Expect to be impressed by the seamless, linear way that friction and regen braking combine, the latter adjustable via steering wheel paddles. There's also a 'one-pedal' mode that arrests the car more fiercely off-throttle. Drive modes are absent, except for an 'Eco' setting you'll need to get anywhere near the quoted range figure.

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