When it comes to electric vehicles, Telsa takes nearly all of the headlines, but Nissan has been quietly selling the Leaf since 2010, two years before the Tesla Model S came to market. Now, Nissan wants some of its thunder back and is working on a dual motor prototype of the Leaf e+. The motors are set up at each axle and provide a combined output of 304 hp and 501 lb.-ft of torque. The regular Leaf e+ has 214 horsepower and 251 lb.-ft of torque and gets to 62 mph from a stop in 6.9 seconds, so with 90 more horsepower and about double the torque, the dual motor version should scoot along quite nicely.
Nissan has tuned the power delivery to be smooth but very responsive. The all-wheel drive system has been tuned to work with the regenerative braking to help control stability even more than a normal all-wheel drive system would.
While it is not going into production, this test bed shows that Nissan is working on more EV systems for the future for a greater variety of vehicles.
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