Nissan next-gen Leaf has ‘e-Pedal’ feature for one-pedal driving with regenerative braking

Regenerative braking is one of the most interesting and differentiating features of electric vehicles. While virtually all electric cars on the market have it, the feature is tuned differently for each vehicle.

Now Nissan promises one of the most advanced regenerative braking systems for the next-generation Leaf.

Ahead of the September launch of its next generation all-electric Leaf, Nissan has been gradually teasing images and features of the vehicle and today it’s the ‘e-Pedal’ feature.

They wrote in a press release:

“With the flip of a switch, the technology turns your accelerator into an e-Pedal, allowing drivers to accelerate, decelerate and stop using just the e-Pedal*. e-Pedal technology is the world’s first one-pedal operation that allows drivers to bring the car to a complete stop even on hills, stay in position, and resume driving instantly.”

It’s not exactly revolutionary. Other electric automakers have opted for a paddle to activate stronger regenerative braking, like GM with the Chevy Bolt EV, while others, like Tesla, simply use different modes to control the strength of the regen system.

Nissan is instead going with a switch to activate it. Here’s a video explanation of the feature on the next-gen Leaf:

As we previously reported, Next-gen Leaf prototypes have been spotted over the past few months as the company is preparing to launch production.

Last month, they confirmed that they will unveil the production version on September 6th in Japan local time (September 5th for the rest of the world) for deliveries by the end of the year under the 2018 model year.

It should be in dealerships shortly after.

Surprisingly, Nissan openly talking about upcoming features on its next generation Leaf should affect the current sales, but the company had record deliveries for the year in the US last month – mainly due to heavily discounting its current Leaf inventories. If you can live with the shorter range, pre-refresh design, and without those latest features that they have been teasing, it can prove a cheap way to get into EV ownership.  You can check with your local Nissan dealer for Leafs in their inventories.