The Nissan Ariya is finally on its way to Australia almost five years after it was revealed, with first examples of the mid-size electric SUV having been loaded onto a ship bound for our shores.
After opening its order book on July 25, Nissan Australia has now shared images of Australia-bound Ariya vehicles ahead of their official on-sale date at the beginning of September.
They’re manufactured in Nissan’s Tochigi Plant in Japan, yet the Ariya significantly undercuts its fellow Japanese-built rivals on price.
Starting at $55,840 before on-road costs, the Ariya is more than $10,000 cheaper than the most affordable Toyota bZ4X ($66,000 before on-roads) and Subaru Solterra ($69,990 plus on-roads).
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It also manages to undercut the popular Tesla Model Y (priced from $58,900 plus on-roads), the best-selling vehicle in this segment, though it’s more expensive than the second-placed BYD Sealion 7 (from $54,990 before on-roads).
Nissan Australia will offer four variants of the Ariya: the front-wheel drive Engage and Advance, which use a 63kWh battery and a 160kW/300Nm electric motor; the Advance+, which upgrades to an 87kWh battery and 178kW/300Nm motor; and the all-wheel drive Evolve flagship, which uses the larger battery but has two electric motors both producing 160kW.
The Ariya is backed by Nissan’s 10-year, 300,000km warranty, provided you service the vehicle at Nissan Australia dealerships. Otherwise, Nissan’s standard warranty is five years with no mileage cap.
Nissan also backs the Ariya’s battery with an eight-year, 160,000km warranty, including a guaranteed minimum battery capacity of at least nine bars out of the 12 visible on the vehicle’s battery capacity level gauge.
The Ariya was revealed in concept form in 2019, before the showroom version was unveiled in 2020 and entered production in 2021.
An Australian launch was first planned for 2023 but its arrival was postponed – something which Nissan Australia blamed on Australian Design Rules (ADRs) as well as limited supply for our market.
The Ariya’s belated arrival in Australia means it avoided an EV price war across the Australian auto industry, led by aggressive price cuts from market-leading EV brand, Tesla.
“I think we’ve been smart with the timing,” Nissan Australia boss Andrew Humberstone told CarExpert in September 2024.
“Or else we would have had to respond to the market conditions and our pricing would have been catastrophic. I think we’ve read that one well.”
He told CarExpert the final push to have Ariya in showrooms came with the arrival of the federal government’s New Vehicle Efficiency Standard (NVES), which came into effect on January 1, 2025.
The Ariya is far from the only vehicle in its segment to face significant delays in coming to Australia, with the Toyota bZ4X and Ford Mustang Mach-E also arriving here much later than in other markets.
