Hello there! You're probably asking yourselves where I've been lately. Well, it's none of your business. But since you're reading this, I just came here to tell you that I told you so! Oh, wait, that's not very specific. I told you that the Nissan Leaf Nismo would suck. I did that in October 2017, when Nissan launched the concept car. Now it's July 2018, and we have a production model that looks like the concept but sucks where it matters most.

As I predicted, the Leaf Nismo is just a regular Leaf under the skin. Yes, I know, Nissan says something about tweaked software and other nonsense, but the battery is the same, and the electric motor delivers the same 147 horsepower and 236 pound-feet of torque. It has a Nismo badge, but it's less powerful than the Chevrolet Bolt and returns fewer miles per charge. That's ridiculous!

Well, I can't say I'm surprised. I've seen this happened before. It was the same story with the Sentra, Patrol, Note, and Micra, which had Nismo badges but standard power. But it's really sad that Nissan blew the chance to become the first carmaker to use its high-performance division to create an uprated electric car. As my neighbor Billy would put it, it's dumb as a doorknob.

Making matters worse, the Leaf Nismo is only available in Japan. Just like the Patrol Nismo was sold only in the Middle East and the Micra Nismo only in Asia. Pathetic!

And I told you so!

Further reading

Read our full review on the 2019 Nissan Leaf Nismo.

Read our full review on the 2017 Nissan Leaf Nismo Concept.

Read more Pops' Rants news.