Nissan Townstar Review (2023-present)

What is the Nissan Townster?

The Nissan Townster van is the result of a variety of alliances that Nissan has with other companies.

The links between Nissan and Renault have been well documented for several years, with the two firms sharing platforms, parts and technology on pretty much all their vehicles. In coming up with their compact van offerings, though, the two companies did what most van manufacturers do, and shared the development and manufacturing costs between themselves and another company, that being Mercedes. The result is that the new Nissan Townstar is pretty much identical underneath to the latest Renault Kangoo and Mercedes-Benz Citan.

It’s available in a variety of different forms. The most popular powertrain option is the all-electric one found in the imaginatively named Nissan Townstar EV (this is effectively the replacement Nissan's previous small electric van, the e-NV200), and this has 119bhp and a theoretical range of 183 miles from a charge. For those who do bigger miles, there’s also a 1.3-litre petrol version, but in a sign of the times, no diesel is offered.

The Townstar is offered in two body lengths - the L1 and L2 - the latter of which adds around 44 centimetres to the length of the loadbay, not to mention one cubic metre to the capacity. Unless you spec your L2 in Crew Cab form, that is, which sacrifices some of its cargo space for a second row of seats.

Rivals are plentiful, and almost all of them take the same co-development approach as the Nissan and its counterparts from Renault and Mercedes. The Stellantis Group offers several small van products, those being the Citroen Berlingo, the Peugeot Partner and the Vauxhall Combo, all of which are the same under the skin. Toyota isn’t part of Stellantis, but even so, it offers another version of the same van called the Proace City.

Volkswagen and Ford have also got into bed together in coming up with the latest versions of the Caddy Cargo and Transit Connect, respectively, and both these semi-identical twins are also rivals for the Townstar. Ford also offers another compact van in the shape of the Transit Courier, which is based on the platform of the Ford Puma SUV. It’s a little smaller than the rest, but there’s not much in it, so the Courier will also be competing for your cash.

How practical is it?

The Nissan Townstar is available in two body lengths: the L1 is just under 4.5 metres long and the L2 is around 42 centimetres longer. This makes it one of the more compact vans on the market.

In terms of load area, the L1 has 3.3 cubic metres of space, while the L2 extends that to 4.3 cubic metres. The loadbay in both is 1,248mm wide between the rear wheel arches, and the height of the loadbay is 1,215mm in the L1 and 1,229mm in the L2. Obviously, though, the bigger difference lies in the loadbay length, which is 1,810mm in the L1 and 2,230mm in the L2. With those dimensions, both versions are capable of carrying two Europallets.

The Townstar has twin side-hinged rear doors on the back end that can be opened up to 180 degrees if you unhook the hinge stoppers, giving better access to the loadbay. All versions also get sliding side doors on both sides of the vehicle as standard: some vans only give you one of these, and some none at all. The extra length of the L2 means its sliding doors open a little wider than the L1’s, and the larger aperture allows you to load a Europallet through the side.

So those are the dimensions, but what about the payloads? Well, that depends on which version you go for.

With the petrol-powered Townstar, the maximum payloads are 725kg for the L1 and 762kg for the L2. However, these are considerably smaller on the all-electric version: the figures stand at 478kg for the L1 and 681kg for the L2.

The Crew Van version, which is only available in L2 format, is a rather different proposition to other Townstars because a fairly large chunk of its overall load capacity has been sacrificed for the extra row of three seats that are accessed through the sliding side doors. With all the seats in place, the length of your loadspace is 1,458mm and your load volume is 2.1 cubic metres. When they’re not needed, however, those rear seats can be folded flat against the back of the front seats - the mechanism that does this is really clever, by the way - to increase the load length to 2,000mm, and the overall capacity to 3.1 cubic metres. The payloads on the Crew Van are 805kg on the petrol and 679kg on the EV.

We haven’t sat in a Crew Van, so we can’t tell you exactly how comfy it is in the back seats, but having seen pictures, there doesn't seem to be a shortage of either legroom or headroom. There’s plenty of room up front with the regular two seats you get as standard, but a third central ‘jump seat’ can be added as an option. Again, we haven’t experienced it, but pictures we’ve seen suggest it might be a bit snug.

Both the driver’s seat and steering wheel have plenty of adjustment In many vans, tall drivers can’t slide their seat back as far as they’d like due to the proximity of the metal bulkhead behind them, but in the Townstar, there’s more space in that area than in most, so tall drivers should be able to get comfy.

Obviously, that bulkhead means you don’t get much in the way of rear visibility: pretty much just what you can see in your door mirrors. These aren’t as big as they are on some vans, but they are electrically adjustable. Entry-level Acenta versions have rear parking sensors, while Tekna trim gets all-round sensors and a reversing camera. The Tekna+, meanwhile, gets 360-degree cameras. Forward visibility is great thanks to the perched-up driving position, plus narrow windscreen pillars that have large quarter-light windows just behind them.

Storage in the cabin is decent: you have shelves above the windscreen, a big glovebox, a large lidded cuddy on top of the dashboard behind the steering wheel, reasonable door bins, a cubby under the central armrest, a couple of shallow cupholders between the front seats. Some rivals have more areas for odds and ends, however, and if you specify the optional jump seat, you’ll lose the last two items we’ve mentioned.

What’s it like to drive?

The most popular version of the Nissan Townstar is the all-electric Townstar EV. It has a 119bhp electric motor powering the front wheels through a single-speed transmission, fed by a 45kWh lithium-ion battery pack.

Nissan quotes 0-60mph times (rather than the more conventional 0-62mph) of 14 seconds for the L1, and 15 seconds for the slightly heavier L2. Those figures suggest that the Townstar EV is pretty darned slow, but it’s not quite as simple as that. When pulling away from the mark, where the generous slice of instantaneous torque from the electric motor delivers its best effect, the vehicle actually feels very perky. Once you’re up and running, though, the Townstar is then rather slow at putting on more speed. We reckon its 0-30mph time must actually be pretty quick, and it’s getting the rest of the way up to 60mph that takes most of the time stated in Nissan’s figure.

This means the Townstar is best suited to darting around urban areas in stop-start traffic, a function it performs extremely well. And when you get out of town, while you can feel that there’s less urgency when picking up speed on the move, the vehicle never feels underpowered or out of its depth. You’ll easily keep up with motorway traffic, although like with many EVs, your top speed is pretty low at 84mph.

The petrol-powered Townstar has a turbocharged 1.3-litre four-cylinder engine mated to a six-speed manual gearbox. For some reason, Nissan doesn’t quote a 0-60mph (or 0-62mph) time for this version, but it does have a higher top speed than the EV at 114mph. However, we haven’t had a go in this version yet, and until we do, we can’t tell you what the performance is like.

We can’t tell you what the petrol engine is like for refinement, either, but we can tell you that you’re in for a pretty quiet life with the Townstar EV. There’s a bit of a whine from the motor as you pull away, but it's very quiet and distant, and only gets more so as you go faster. You’ll tiptoe through town very quietly indeed, with only the odd clunk from the suspension to be heard. You hear a bit of wind noise at motorway speed, and a bit of road noise, but it’s only really noticeable because of the shortage of noise from elsewhere, so it’s still a pleasantly quiet way to travel.

It’s also impressively comfortable, which is of crucial importance when van drivers often spend large portions of their working day at the wheel of their vehicle. The suspension is softly sprung and does a great job of smoothing out all sorts of road surfaces at all speeds.

But despite the soft suspension, there’s enough body control to keep things feeling tidy. The body doesn’t bounce around over dips and crests, and while the tall body will lean over a bit as you turn into faster corners, the vehicle still feels stable and unflustered. The steering is quick and light, so it’s easy to fling the wheel about quickly.

All version of the Townstar can tow a braked trailer of 1,500kg, except the all-electric version of the Crew Cab, which doesn’t appear to be rated for towing at all.

Technology, equipment & infotainment

The standard trim level for the Nissan Townster is called Acenta, and this gets most of what you really need for a comfortable life, with steel wheels with plastic wheel trims, climate control air-conditioning, powered windows, cruise control, reversing sensors, remote locking, and automatic lights and wipers.

Mid-range Tekna specification has a body-coloured front bumper and door handles for slightly sharper looks, while you also get keyless entry and go, a smartphone holder, a reversing camera and all-round parking sensors. Top-end Tekna+ trim adds 16-inch alloy wheels, a leather steering wheel, and 360-degree cameras.

On the infotainment front, all versions of the Townstar come with the same 8.0-inch colour touchscreen, which supports DAB radio, Bluetooth, Apple CarPlay and Android Auto. Tekna and Tekna+ trim levels add native satellite navigation to the system.

The graphics aren’t the sharpest, and also look a little dated, but it’s reasonably easy to find your way around the system. That’s thanks to fairly logical menu layouts and touch-sensitive shortcut icons on the left-hand side of the screen. There’s also the fact that, while the system has all the functionality you want, it’s not absolutely rammed full of features that you’ll never use like some such systems are.

The Acenta and Tekna get old-school analogue dials, while in EV form, the Tenka+ gets a 10.0-inch digital instrument screen behind the steering wheel. Both work really well, being very clear and easy to read.

Nissan Townster running costs

You’ll need to think quite carefully before getting yourself a Townstar about which powertrain will suit you best. The all-electric Nissan Townstar EV has quite a small battery at just 45kWh, so its WLTP range is given at 183 miles combined, and a figure of 269 miles is said to be achievable when confined to city driving. That's not great compared with most electric cars, although to be fair, it’s a lot more competitive when compared with other electric vans.

As always with EVs, though, what you’ll actually get in the real world will be significantly less than this laboratory figure. Even in perfect conditions, don’t bank on much more than 140 miles from the electric Townstar, and in cold weather or when subjected to prolonged motorway use, that’ll probably be more like 100 miles. If your daily mileage exceeds this on an even semi-regular basis, we reckon you’ll be better suited to the petrol. There’s a very slight difference in fuel economy between the L1 and L2 petrol models, but both have an official WLTP figure of around 41mpg.

If the EV version does suit you, bear in mind that it’ll cost a lot more than the petrol at the outset: around £13,000 separates the entry-level Acenta version of the petrol and the EV.

If you’re still minded to go with the zero-emissions Townstar, charging happens through a CCS port (which has gradually become the European standard meaning the vehicle will be compatible with the vast majority of public chargers) concealed behind the Nissan badge on the nose. Your standard equipment includes two charging cables: a Type 2 to Type 2 cable for plugging into home wallboxes and slower AC public chargers (on higher powered DC public chargers, the cable is built in), and a cable with a Type 2 plug at one end to plug in to the vehicle, and a three-pin domestic plug at the other to fit into a regular household plug socket.

Use the latter, and you’ll only get a 2.3kW hookup, and so charging will take absolutely ages: 26 hours from empty to full. Most owners will get a home or work wallbox charger fitted, though, because that’ll boost your charging speed up to 7.4kW, so the time needed for a full charge comes down to seven hours, which is far more manageable.

If you need an on-the-move top-up, a 22kW AC public charger will take you from 15-80% in an hour and a half. When it comes to DC rapid charging, the Townstar’s maximum speed of 80kW isn’t all that great. However, because the battery is small, you can still get that same 15-80% charge in just 37 minutes.

How much a charge costs will depend on how much you pay for your power. If you charge the car at home on a tariff priced at the UK national average, a full charge will cost you around £12. If your household tariff allows you to charge overnight at a discounted rate, meanwhile, you can probably halve that. Use a public rapid charger, though, and you can likely double the original figure, and this can really mount up if relied on on a regular basis.

Nissan Townster reliability

Japanese brands often excel when it comes to reliability, topping the tables in any of the various surveys doing the rounds. However, Nissan isn’t usually one of them. For instance, the 2023 What Car? Reliability Survey placed Nissan 19th out of 32 brands considered, a decidedly lacklustre performance. Vans aren’t included in the survey, but the Townstar shares a platform and parts with the Qashqai SUV. The petrol-powered Qashqai came 23rd out of 34 cars considered in the Family SUV class, another bottom-half showing.

Hopefully, you can take heart from the fact that vans are designed to put up with hard and constant use with little or no time off the road that would cost their owners money in lost earnings.

You can also take heart from the fact that Nissan offers a far more generous warranty on its commercial vehicles than it does on its passenger cars. Cover lasts five years or 100,000 miles, rather than three years or 60,000 miles. The battery, meanwhile, is covered for eight years or 100,000 miles, and will be replaced or repair for free if its capacity falls below 70% in that time.