Nissan is chucking a hissy fit over Aussie car rules, which confuses me.
Here is a company that sells a fairly well-rounded range of cars with a rich legacy of production models and motorsport wins, and was one of the first companies to get behind a mass-produced electric car, all the way back in 2010 with the original Leaf.
The Leaf, even with occasional facelifts, is showing its age and is hardly competitive in the modern EV landscape, but for some reason, the company is still yet to bring its ‘Ariya’ mass-market electric SUV to Australia. What gives? Well, Nissan’s saying Australian car rules aren’t helping out.
Quick recap. Nissan has been selling the Ariya in the European and American markets since 2022. It has long dodged the Australian market, which wasn’t surprising considering we’re a much smaller market than those other two (with no emissions standards at the time), but similar cars like the Toyota BZ4X have launched locally before it.
That car was produced and sold under similar circumstances, so it’s somewhat remarkable that the Ariya is still absent. There is, however, a Nismo variant, and do I want to drive it.
The Nissan Ariya is locked in for Australia, but no indicative window has been given.
Now, one of Nissan’s execs has gotten on a bit of a soapbox over Australian tuning rules.
“A car that exists in Europe, in Japan, takes about 45 weeks to be homologated to Australia,” Nissan senior vice president and chief planning officer for the African, Middle East, India, European, and Oceanic regions Francois Bailly said to media in the UK, per Drive. “and when you put that against the [fuel efficiency] regulation that is coming, 45 weeks is really, really long.”
Bailly said he wants the Australian Government to help “compress” the homologation period – that cars released in a “safe market” like the U.S. or Europe should allow it to speed across the certification process.
Here’s the thing though, the Ariya hasn’t even been submitted for approval in Australia, as the media pointed out on the day. Drive wrote that this is likely because of the missing top tether point for the centre rear seat – the absence of which limits the car from being classified as a five-seater.
“You have specific needs, it can be the tethering, it can be ANCAP, so you have many different aspects, it’s not just the child seat,” Bailly added.
I love it when car execs play the classics. At least this hill to die on isn’t anywhere near as embarrassing as the one that Mitsubishi Australia’s CEO sits on, which has him complaining about safety ratings and positing that Australians should accept a less safe (but more affordable) EV. Even though the three cheapest EVs in Australia, variants of the MG4, BYD Dolphin, and GWM Ora, all have perfect safety ratings. Go figure.
Here’s to hoping incoming vehicle emissions standards encourage companies like Nissan and Mitsubishi to bring EVs down under.
Image: Nissan