Nissan Townstar EV (2023) van review

• Refined and quiet cabin
• Silent and punchy electric motor
• Surprisingly comfortable, even when empty

The Nissan Townstar drives much better than the commercial vehicles from a decade ago. It can’t match the Ford Transit for outright driver engagement, but it’s certainly better than the Peugeot e-Partner and Citroen e-Berlingo. And, because it’s based on the same CMF-CD platform as the Nissan Qashqai and Renault Austral, it’s surprisingly car-like to drive.

We’ve spent time in the Townstar both in central Paris and on a mixture of UK roads. In both scenarios, we were impressed by its ride in particular, both at low speeds and on the motorway. It’s surprisingly supple for a van and the rear end doesn’t jump over speed bumps even when you’re not carrying anything. We reckon this competence is down to the heavy battery pack mounted under the floor of the cabin, which helps to keep the chassis settled over bumps and potholes.

We like the steering, too. It’s direct and reasonably lightweight, which makes it doddle to thread the Townstar through chaotic traffic. It’s also only 200mm longer and 25mm wider than the Nissan Qashqai, so it’s easy to place on the road – and the wide door mirrors make it easy to spot kamikaze moped riders and enraged taxi drivers.

It's got a town mode for the steering, too, which makes it even easier to spin the wheel around to get in and out of tight spots. To be honest, we regularly forgot to use it on plenty of occasions where we could have pressed the button, though. It isn't as if the steering is heavy, so there isn't really a moment when you are going hand-over-hand as you try and force the van out of a parking space.

The electric motor has enough performance to exploit gaps in the traffic but it isn’t powerful enough to knock your cargo over, which suits the Townstar’s relaxed nature well. Despite being most at home around town, it is perfectly comfortable on the motorway, too. It offers good refinement when cruising and progressive acceleration when overtaking.

The brake-regeneration modes are set by knocking the gear lever to the right and then moving it up and down, much as you would change gears if it was a conventional automatic. You can't put it into a one-pedal mode, as you can with other electric Nissans like the Leaf, as the highest setting merely slows you down rather than taking you all the way to a standstill, but it does provide a good variation between the three.

The adaptive cruise control ran into a little issue when we tested the Townstar in some wet and dirty conditions. The forward-facing radar system got dirty enough that it wasn't able to pick out the cars in front, which meant it prevented the use of cruise control full stop. The ability to set a manual speed without the adaptive element would be handy.

However, when the radar was clean, it also provided a handy trick, as it is able to show how far ahead the car in front is in seconds. Some drivers won't see much benefit in it, while it may assist others by putting their tailgating into basic numbers.

• Comfortable seats
• Good infotainment system
• Plenty of tech on top trim

The Townstar’s interior is better finished than the Peugeot e-Partner and Citroen e-Berlingo’s. The plastics are of a slightly better quality and the seats are much more comfortable, offering much more lumbar support. The cabin is also far less boomy, thanks in equal measure to the sound deadening up front and the solid bulkhead fitted to UK models.

There’s a flipside to this, though, because UK buyers miss out on some practical solutions offered to buyers on the continent. European drivers can have a clever vertical split-folding mesh bulkhead and folding front passenger seat that allows you to transport longer items (like lengths of copper pipe or timber) inside the van. We also don’t get the European van’s enormous glovebox.

Despite these oversights, the Townstar’s cabin is still quite practical. There’s a big overhead storage tray, a well-sized centre console and a handy lidded storage box above the instrument binnacle which is great for hiding valuables. The door bins can also accommodate litre-sized water bottles.

We like the infotainment system, too. The 8.0-inch unit fitted to Acenta grade models and up looks sharp and responds quickly – and it’s easy to read in bright sunlight. Nissan’s built-in sat-nav system is intelligent, too, but Apple CarPlay and Android Auto work perfectly well, so don’t feel like you need to spend the extra cash on the Tekna model.

There’s plenty of equipment on the range-topping Tekna+ variant, although it is quite expensive, costing more than £37,000. Stand-out features include a self-parking system and a 360-degree camera, both of which are clever – but they’re not without their faults.

The self-parking system is a little temperamental. If the sensors are even slightly dirty, they’ll struggle to recognise spaces and will refuse to park the van. You can’t rely on the camera system when parking, either – the fisheye lenses distort the distances slightly and make objects appear further away than they are.

• More expensive than petrol model
• Longer official range than key rivals
• Five-year/100,000-mile warranty

The Townstar EV is powered by a 45kWh battery that offers a claimed WLTP range of 183 miles. This is slightly more than the 171 miles claimed by the Peugeot e-Partner and Citroen e-Berlingo, despite the fact those vans feature larger 50kWh batteries.

We haven’t yet spent enough time in the Townstar EV to determine how accurate that range figure is under real world conditions, but Nissan seems confident in its ability. The firm even touts that, if you’re only pottering the van around at low speeds, it can drive for up to 269 miles.

For now, all we’ll say is that the e-Partner and e-Berlingo can’t achieve their claimed range figures. Drive down the motorway with any kind of payload in the back and you’ll be doing well to manage 100 miles before stopping to charge. We’re interested to see whether the Townstar can do better.

One thing to bear in mind if you’re considering the Townstar EV is the price. It’s a little cheaper than its key rivals – but it’s still almost £35,000. That’s an awful lot of money, especially when you consider that the petrol-powered Townstar starts from a shade under £24,000 including VAT.

The price gap between petrol and electricity has narrowed over the last year, too, meaning EVs aren’t as cheap to fuel as they once were. If you’re a city-dwelling tradie that regularly charges up at public DC rapid chargers, you might end up paying the same amount per mile as the petrol model.

The Townstar has a competitive charging setup, though. The most basic van comes with an 11kW AC on-board charger as standard which can completely recharge its battery in five hours. The same 11kW charger is an optional extra on the Peugeot e-Partner and Citroen e-Berlingo.

Middling Acenta grade vans gain an even faster 22kW AC on-board charger (which you can’t get on the Stellantis vans) and support for 80kW DC rapid charging. Granted the latter system is slower than the 100kW DC system fitted to the Peugeot and Citroen, but the Townstar EV can still take on 90 miles of range in 25 minutes. That should be enough for your commute to the job and back.

Nissan Townstar EV warranty

Nissan has tried to steal a march on the competition here. The Townstar comes with a five-year/ 100,000-mile vehicle warranty, which is two years and 40,000-miles longer than the Peugeot e-Partner and Citroen e-Berlingo. The Townstar’s battery is also warrantied for eight years.

The only commercial vehicle in this segment that can do better is the Toyota Proace City Electric. It’s pretty much identical to the Peugeot and Citroen but it comes with a 10-year warranty, providing you get it serviced at a registered Toyota dealership.

It’s still too early to provide an accurate assessment of the Townstar’s reliability. The EV model should be dependable, though, because there are far fewer moving parts than a traditional diesel van – and that means there are fewer things to go wrong.

You can also take comfort in the fact that the Townstar is based on proven technology. It’s built on the same platform as the Nissan Qashqai and Renault Austral SUVs, neither of which have poor reliability records.

• Four-star rating from Euro NCAP
• Lots of safety kit on top-spec model
• Standard driver’s airbag

When Euro NCAP crash-tested the Townstar in 2021, it awarded it a four-star safety rating. The van performed reasonably well across the board, but its pedestrian recognition system dragged its score down. The testers marked the performance of its autonomous emergency braking system as “adequate” when confronted with pedestrians, although it fared better with cyclists.

The entry-level Townstar Visia has a rather limited amount of safety technology. This includes a tyre pressure monitoring system, hill hold assist, a single airbag for the driver and LED headlights. The Acenta model is a more well-rounded package, adding cruise control, rear parking sensors and autonomous emergency braking.

If you splash out on the range-topping Townstar Tekna+, you’ll get a comparable level of safety equipment to most high-spec passenger cars. Features include lane departure warning, a traffic sign recognition system, all-round parking sensors and a blind-spot monitoring system.

Unlike the Peugeot e-Partner, you can’t specify the extra safety equipment on the entry-level version of the Townstar. If you want the tech, you’ll need to spend big on the flagship version. And it is a real shame, as ever, that it only comes with the one airbag as standard - there is no passenger version included.