An old hand in the electric-sphere puts its talent to good use with a new-era charger.

Price: $89,990 until March

Powertrain: Dual electric motor, maximum power 290kW, maximum torque 600Nm, 87kWh battery.

How big: 4595mm long, 2172mm wide, 1660mm high.

We like: Comfortable, elegant interior; good driving experience; vastly superior to Leaf.

Not so much: Challenging price even at discount; so-so maximum DC charging rate.

SO that’s that, then: The deal that would have created the world’s third largest car company is toast.

A pity in a way. By all accounts, Nissan sorely needs a friend.

Struggles as of late are well known; plan to laying off 9000 workers, to slash production output by 20 percent, to cancel some models in response to sinking sales and profit.

When talks with Honda began in late December, expectations of a merger seemed solid. Mitsubishi would also transfer into the new family.

But then the wheels fell off. Honda – on strength of being roughly five times larger and immensely healthier - preferred Nissan as a subsidiary. Nissan’s pride simply wouldn’t allow that. Mitsubishi stayed mum.

And now … the whole idea is scuppered. Even though Honda and Nissan released statements last week indicating that no decision had been made as of yet, and that plans were expected to be finalised by mid-February, Honda just today announced the memorandum of understanding between the two companies designed to explore a merger has officially been terminated. Nissan is thought to now be seeking a technical partner, potentially Taiwan’s Foxconn, which is keen to get into car-making and also wants to buy out Renault’s share.

A pity the tripartite car make marriage didn’t play out. The ‘could have , would haves’ seemed so intriguing … the Mitsubishi Triton, already signed off as the next Nissan Navara, further morphing into Honda’s first one-tonne ute? Why not. Honda’s clever compact to medium hybrid sports utilities availing to the others. Jazz for all?

Just who would lead in the electric scene? While Mitsubishi - having been there, done that with the teensy iMiEV - seems to have settled into as strange dormancy, both Honda and Nissan are deeply committed to a battery-fed future.

Having dabbled with smaller cars, Honda has just committed to its ‘Zero’ line. Nissan, of course, is the one that with the most heritage on its side, though with just one core car.

Tesla and its fans love to imagine Elon was the ground-breaker; but reality is the Leaf showed first, in 2009, and comfortably holds status as the world’s first mass market electric and zero-emission vehicle. It’s been a remarkable breakthrough machine.

For all that, Nissan’s issue has been obvious. It’s become the band that has taken a painfully long time to come up with a follow-up to that solid gold debut album.

Leaf covers several generations, the latest being a big leap over the first. But let’s not forget that the car which deserves credit for achieving as this country’s highest volume EV, albeit on strength of used import popularity, is - even in newest guise - an old, technically outmoded car now. Something better has been needed for some years.

It’s here. Finally. Testing Ariya in its flagship Evolve format impressed that Nissan NZ, after some initial hesitancy, has been right to commit to this car. Driving it was a genuinely good experience. Read office citing of it being good enough to represent a whole new electrified brand identity is spot on.

Packing the largest, 87kWh battery and a twin-motor e-Force set-up, it is powerful, delivering 290kW and 600Nm, quick off the market - 0-100kmh in 5.1 seconds to a top speed of 200kmh - and offering a decent stated range of 497 kilometres.

It’s a sports utility wagon - because that’s what the majority of people want now - and one that puts that design to very good use, with genuine all-round roominess and decent practicality. Tough if you don’t like this. The next-generation Leaf set to be unveiled any day now is going the same way.

Sure, there are ‘can do better’ elements: The cabin design’s futuristic and minimalistic intent is let down a bit by Nissan’s screen fonts and presentations being so irksomely old-fashioned. Also, while the zero-gravity seats for the front row are superb, the rear seat is noticeably less generous for comfort and space.

On the electric side specifically, as is often the case you are left wishing the efficiency could be a bit better and that it could recharge faster than the 130kW maximum. While this allows for a 20-80 percent top up in around 30 minutes, you’re going to be hooked up for a a lot longer if seeking to go higher.

But overall? It’s the right car for this brand and as much of a genuine contender as many others that aim to serve those looking for a medium SUV/crossover/large hatch kind of electric car.

Which, to be fair, if evaluating on purely technical evidence and its size and spec, is quite a few choices.

You could conceivably see this as being a competitor for a wide range of alternates, well beyond the always-cited Tesla Model Y. The Ford Mustang Mach-E, Skoda Kodiaq, VW ID.4, Kia EV6/Hyundai Ioniq 5 and even, in some ways, the LeapMotor C10. Conceivably.

No need to keep suspense. It drives well. You hear a lot from EV fans about how slow established car makers are to deliver on this kind of technology, but the Ariya is another car that relates an important factor often overlooked by those zealots: That decades of car making experience really counts when it comes to delivering genuine driving feel-good.

That’s a major plus point for Ariya; it so instantly has the feel of decently-sorted car in respect to its dynamic aptitude and driver feedback.

So many EVs are let down by wooden ride (yes, talking about you Telsa Model Y); poor brake and steering feel and, above all else, overly-intrusive driver monitoring and active driver assistance protocols. Almost everything from Chinese domestic makes falls into the latter hole.

Ariya has foibles, yes, but like many EVs that have felt influence from top-drawer brands - that being a international effort in this case, as it utilises a platform co-developed with Renault - it imparts sense of being the result of a very careful development process.

You are left in no doubt whatsoever that, with this car, very good engineers with very good understanding of suspension tuning in respect to ride refinement, noise and vibration suppression, steering, throttle and brake feel … those are the people who worked on this CMF-EV electric architecture. And it’s all the better for it.

So what’s the catch? There’s one that will causes some second thoughts.

Pricing is especially challenging for electric car producers. Further, all the discounting over the past year to shift excess stock has somewhat clouded impression about what it actually costs to present an electric car to the market.

It is patently less expensive to make an EV nowadays than it was 10, even five years, ago; economises of scale work favourably, as does improvement in battery development and, yes, the effect of healthy competition.

Even so, there’s still a price to realising a zero-emissions future in a way that’s good for the economy, individuals and the planet. Batteries still account for 40 percent of a car’s cost and though one country, China, has shown itself ready to undercut the others, the way it plays that game is highly politically motivated, flavoured by national and regional government concessions that just don’t exist anywhere else.

Is Ariya’s pricing out of kilter with market trend? That does seem to be the case with the flagship. As much as launch promotion that is said to be good until March is decent in that it removes $20,000 from the full recommended retail, even with the special sticker it is just not as budget friendly as other dual motor EVs it will be compared to.

Conceivably, there is better spending to be had with the entry Engage or mid-spec Advance, which each step back to a single motor in front-drive format with 160kW and 300Nm and a 63kWh battery, for which range of 398km stated.

It’s hard to say how they stack up for actual ownership without having experienced them, but when the cheaper is down to $59,990 for now, from $76,990, and the next is $69,990, from $82,990, it would seem prudent to give those versions consideration, not least because your’e still buying into much the same car.

Moving on, what immediately draws attention is the design. The Blade Runner-esque styling draws heavily from a concept unveiled at the 2019 Tokyo Motor Show, yet it hasn’t at all dated. It’s a smart and modern looking car, still.

Size-wise, it also seems right. At 4595mm long, 1850mm wide and 1655mm tall, the Ariya is relatively compact, which means it is easier to manoeuvre in city traffic; threading through a packed car parking building presented no issue and it fits comfortably into quite tight spots. The 360-degree Around View Monitor with moving object detection adds a failsafe to that experience.

It’s yet another EV that works the Tardis trick, in feeling expansively large within, with a pleasingly open, airy-feeling interior.

As much as I wouldn’t care if it didn’t have a big full length panoramic sunroof, at least it and the sloping roofline don’t seem to negate rear headroom and the 2775mm wheelbase and the absence of a transmission tunnel allow clever stowage ideas, too.

The motorised sliding centre console is purely for this top edition, which seems a pity. The designer idea is that it allows a driver to position the armrest pod – with its secondary controls and storage features – exactly to personal preference and ‘save’ that driving position. It seems a little gimmicky, but I found it truly relevant.

Another neat feat is a storage cubby-cum-table that swings out from within the fascia at the touch of a button on the centre console. It seems a decent stowage space for small valuables.

Nissan has also freed up space inventively in other ways, too. Removing the air conditioning equipment from the cabin (to locate it under the bonnet instead because … well, no engine) is good thinking.

The cabin at top purchasing level mixes Japanese traditional touches - the inlays have a subtle pattern that's supposed to resemble a traditional Japanese kumiko design - with a high-tech vibe. The wood veneer fascia trim, the bronze-coloured brightwork of the air vents and the soft woollen dashpad also add to the premium feel. A shame, then, about the unlined door bins.

The delivery of hidden-until-lit capacitive ventilation controls along that wood strip is a show car element that might raise criticism, but in actual use they work fine, though the capacitive buttons do require a firm push.

It is not a complete button-less cockpit - there’s still a volume knob for the audio (and the steering wheel has small buttons, too) - but the infotainment that comprises two 12.3in displays integrated side by side does require many inputs via the touchscreen or by voice command.

The main menu screen its easy enough to find your way around; my only bugbear is that the fonts just look really dated, the integrated sat-nav rendering even more so. The whole look is just so eight bit pixelated and blocky you’ll likely be pleased, as I was, that wireless smartphone mirroring is standard and seems really reliable, as your smartphone’s connected features are far smarter than the factory provisions.

What influences the car’s capaciousness is the liquid-cooled lithium ion battery being a flat pack, which allows the vehicle to have a completely flat floor.

While the big battery edition has 58 litres less boot space than the entry rear-drive car, whose boot offers 466-litres’ capacity, it doesn’t feel overly comprised. Nissan doesn’t provide a home charging kit of any kind, but instead does include a type 2 to type 2 AC cable that, frankly, I’d have little use for; for my, DC charging would be the primary choice.

All models also come with a heat pump, designed to lessen the load on the battery during extreme hot or cold temperatures – preserving as much electric range as possible.

Sensibility comes with the charging port location. Sure, siting it on the tip of its nose, as occurred with the Leaf, would have continued a trend, but also raised crash integrity issues, so it moves to the nearside front wing. The cleverness is that, unlike in many rivals, it is part of the car’s mirror-converted layout for right and left hand drive, so is always on the kerbside when you parallel park.

The drive modes span the usual standard, sport and eco settings, with e-Force models adding a snow function. It also uses the Leaf’s e-Pedal regeneration set-up, allowing one pedal driving, but the calibration is a bit too involving for my liking; in this setting, you seemingly have to just think about slowing and it’s standing on its nose.

This aspect is a give or take: There are no steering wheel paddles for the adjustment of brake energy regeneration, so you’re stuck with the mode set by Nissan. It would be mostly useful for operation in heavy urban traffic.

Nissan’s ProPILOT driver assist system is at its zenith here, with an intelligent lane keeping system with traffic jam assist along with blindspot monitoring, an intelligent limit-sensing cruise control and automatic emergency braking with pedestrian and cyclist recognition.

A master control button on the steering wheel allows you to sort which you want to use and which you’d refer to be in slumber. I messed around with these on a daily basis. The ultra-safety minded might think the lane keep and crash mitigation settings are a little languid, but having driven so many domestic Chinese makes in which those effects, and others, are just too over-zealous, I’m fine with Nissan’s calibrations.

As said, I found the driving feel fine. Even in this form, it’s not a fast car - those looking for a performance fiend need send that request to Nismo - and I have doubt about the claimed range ever being likely outside of a laboratory, though what it gives - I figure around 350kms from a mix of urban and open road before you need thinking about recharging - is liveable. But it does drive with confidence and calmness, which I like.

The tuning of the independent struts at the front and multi-link at the rear, with steel coil springs and conventional passive dampers, is finely done, to point that the car can acquit with 20-inch wheels and lowish profile rubber without the usual road noise and vibration issues. While it is not a model that asks to be thrown around, the underfloor drive battery gives it a low centre of gravity, which is a bonus for handling.

For a car that was technically two years old before it even got here, Ariya has by and large held up well. In respect to its size, design, fit-out and performance delivery, it is set to up to dive head-first into a really competitive part of the market.

What might keep it from doing so is the price. As things stand, you can buy equally good choices that, even when their full RRPs reinstate, can be bought into for considerably less.