It's like a ghost is driving the car. Did you know the first working electric vehicle was actually produced sometime between 1832 and 1839 and only followed by gasoline-fueled vehicles in 1867? And I bet you didn't know that Nissan's first electric vehicle was created more than 70 years ago.
Let's rewind back to postwar Japan; oil was scarce, but creativity not so much. That's when Nissan engineers said, "Challenge accepted," and rolled out the Tama electric vehicle in 1947. Think of it as the OG electric car. It was named Tama after the area where the company was based and came with a top speed of 21 mph and a range of 60 miles.
After years of countless EV concepts and productions, we are in Toronto with the Japanese futurism-inspired all-electric Nissan [Music] Ara. I personally really love the design of the Arya. It's modern, sleek, and this copper metallic color really pops, especially in the sun.
It's a nice contrast. We also have the Nissan Emblem lit up, and then if you look closely, you can see the very subtle Kumo design, which is a traditional Japanese pattern featured throughout the vehicle. So, we'll have to keep an eye out for that. It has 19-inch alloy wheels with their own unique design too.
From the rear, you can really see the badging. It says eforce, which is Nissan's all-wheel-drive system on this car. And then I really like how the Nissan emblem is behind the glass instead of protruding out like the other emblems. Here, let's go ahead and check out the inside.
So, the first thing I noticed on the door panel is this Kumo design, and it's even on the speaker covers. Let's go ahead and get in. It's very sleek, clean, and minimalistic. So, let's go ahead and turn it on. Hold on, guys. I need the key. It may not be a combustion engine, but it still needs a key to turn on. All right, here you go, round two. Oh, hi Arya, nice to meet you.
So in front of me, it looks like one large screen, but it's actually two separate screens. We have a 12.3-clustered display up front, and then on the right, we have another 12.3 display with Apple CarPlay. One of my favorite features is in the navigation; when you're looking at where you're going to go, what you're going to plan, it'll actually show you local charging stations.
Now, I don't have to search for a charging port, and I really love this. If you look closely, you can see this is like a wood paneling, and these buttons aren't physical buttons, but they're lights that, when you press on them, it's like a haptic vibration a little bit underneath so you can really feel that.
As we move down to looking at the center console, what's super convenient is that the whole console is adjustable. And check this out, put your phone in here, and that little light comes on, and that's a secret phone charger. Speaking of secrets, out of the dash comes this small table, so it's a table, also a secret compartment, but I bet we can fit a laptop on it. Voila, that's a proper size laptop, by the way, might I add.
So, one super interesting thing about the rear-view mirror, well, one, not only is it really sleek, but if you turn it on, it actually turns into a camera, like a rear-view camera. I have a lot of space in here. I'm actually very, very comfortable, and I got lots of room for activities. And then it looks like the rear seats both have their own individual heated seat for maximum hot buns. Oh, here we go, open says me. There's actually a lot of space in here. There we go, who needs an apartment when you got an ARA. Good night.
All right, let's go ahead and take the ARA out on a spin. I'm really excited to be playing with the pro-Pilot parking assist. It's where the car parks for you. Drive slowly to find an open space. Okay, there we go. It's found one. So we click Start, and I let go. Oh, I wasn't expecting that. It just yeets it, and you can see it's backing up into the spot. I don't know how it knows; it's like a ghost is driving the car.
Watching the Arya park itself, the pro-Pilot parking assist was really wild to watch. Like I was in here watching the car literally park itself, and it parked itself flawlessly. So, we're going to go ahead and get this on the road, but before we get started, there's a drive mode button. Looks like we have sport, standard, eco, and then even a snow option. It's really wild to be in the car and in the middle of the city and for it to be so quiet in here. The glass, they actually laminate the glass, so it really soundproofs everything in here.
The Nissan ARA Premier eforce comes with 389 horsepower and 442 foot-pounds of torque. Now with that all-wheel drive and instant torque, this really feels like a Nissan GTR. So we're stopped at a red light, and I we have to merge, so I figured it would be a perfect opportunity to really test out the amount of torque and power that this E has to offer. Bye [Music]. Everybody, please tell me you heard that, that battery wine. It sounded like a spaceship taking off. That was pretty quick; I'm not going to lie.
Obviously, this is an electric car; you need to plug it in to have it charged. So you can drive it for the Premier E4 trim. You plug it in 40 minutes, and it charges it all the way up to 80%. That's pretty fast. And then for range, the 2023 Venture Plus trim model, which is the front-wheel-drive version of this car, gets a maximum of 490 km.
So on the right hand side of my steering wheel, you'll see there's a blue button with the car in small circles. You press that, and it activates the pro-pilot assist. Now what that does is activate a handful of things but keeps you centered in your lane. It keeps the same distance between you and the car in front of you, and it will break for you, making sure that it keeps that distance and that you stay within the speed limit.
So after taking the Nissan ARA for a drive, it's very peaceful, it's very easy to drive, it's like a Zen Lounge, and it's inspired by Japanese futurism. But after driving this, I personally feel like the future is here now, like it's here in the new on area.