• by Tanya Gazdik , July 15, 2020

Nissan debuted a new model, the Ariya all-electric crossover, via a virtual event early Wednesday morning in Yokohama, Japan.

The event took place at 1 a.m. EDT. Japan Standard Time is 13 hours ahead. Viewers from around the global were able to watch the unveiling at a dedicated website called The Nissan Next.  

The Ariya offers an estimated range of up to 300 miles, which makes the vehicle suitable for both daily commutes as well as road trips, according to the automaker. 

The model is based on the similarly named concept vehicle displayed at the 2019 Tokyo Motor Show and first hinted at with the IMx at the 2017 Tokyo Motor Show. 

The front of the vehicle is highlighted by a shield -– a reimagined grille for the electric vehicle era. Nissan’s redesigned brand logo, composed of 20 LEDs, is placed at the center. The lower section of the shield is bordered by subtle lighting that illuminates, along with the logo, when the Ariya is ready for operation.

“In keeping both sun and bar design elements, the logo signals a respect for the company’s heritage, while moving towards a future of mobility services and electrification,” according to the automaker.

The new emblem was first created by Nissan’s global design team as a badge to live on future cars, with Nissan United (the multidisciplinary unit within TBWA that drives Nissan’s marketing and communications globally) and TBWA’s Design by Disruption (DXD) unit building out a flexible and wide-ranging brand identity system The brand identity includes applications in both 2D and 3D for all communications, including advertising, digital platforms, websites and dealerships.

Ariya is the first production model to represent Nissan’s new electrified brand identity, the company says.

Nissan expects sales of its electrified models to be more than 1 million units a year by the end of fiscal 2023. 

The Ariya features a new human-machine interface -- a hybrid voice recognition system with advanced natural language understanding technology to handle in-vehicle assistance without drivers having to take their eyes off the road. 

The vehicle also includes Amazon Alexa to play music, place calls, control smart home devices, and more, with just voice commands.

The Nissan Ariya will go on sale in Japan from mid-2021, with U.S. availability to follow later in 2021. Pricing in the U.S. will start around $40,000.