Nissan apparently plans to slash production of the redesigned Leaf EV even while keeping the starting price for the upcoming 2026 Leaf S base at the bargain basement sub-$30,000 level, according to media reports.
[This article was updated on 9/23/25 to include comments from Nissan.]
A spokesman for Nissan North America said the reports – which put the starting price before destination charges at just under $25,500 – aren’t accurate. “We haven’t issued pricing on this model which arrives next year. We’re not sure where this figure materialized from,” the spokesman wrote in an e-mail exchange with TheGreenCarGuy.com.
Automotive News, which first reported the price, attributed it to a Nissan dealer who showed the publication a confidential pricing memo from Nissan.
Separately, reports in Japan’s leading financial newspaper, The Nikkei, pas well as in Automotive News, put monthly production of the three initial trim levels of the redone 2026 Leaf at just 500 units for the U.S. market for the first three months of sales, which are due to start soon. Those reports cite anonymous Nissan suppliers and insiders.
Nissan said it has no comment on what the U.S. spokesman called “the speculative reports” of a production cut.
A New Year Reset?
Leaf production plans for the remainder of the 2026 model year reportedly will be reevaluated at the end of that initial period, likely at the beginning of calendar 2026.
A production cutback would come as Nissan struggles with its own financial health as well as an industry-wide impact of U.S. tariffs on imported autos and parts, and a global slowdown in the pace of in EV sales expected to be exacerbated by the end this month of for federal incentives for electric vehicle sales and leases in the U.S.
No Ariya for 2026
The company already has confirmed that it is canceling U.S. sales of its larger Ariya EV for the 2026 model year as it tries to work its way back into financial health by concentrating on more popular and profitable mainstream models.
Nissan, however, is citing low supplies of batteries for the new Leaf, not financial woes, as the principal reason for the cutback in planned production, according to the report in The Nikkei.
Absent federal incentives, which end Sept. 30 and have helped EV sales in the U.S. grow steadily for a decade, the upcoming 2026 Leaf S is expected to be the least expensive EV in the U.S. market. That normally would mean a sales bump for Nissan.
Leaf S will be a bargain, but…
If the reported MSRP of $25,360 for the 2026 Leaf S is anywhere close to accurate, it would have a starting price of under $27,000 after the current mandatory destination fee of $1,495 is applied.
That’s almost $3,000 less than the outgoing 2025 Leaf S, and the 2026 redesign means the new base model will have more features, 18% more horsepower and likely a decent bump in range from the 2025 base model’s 149 miles.
Range figures for 2026 haven’t been made available, but Nissan has said that the new Leaf S will get 52 kWh of usable battery capacity versus 40 kWh for the 2025 model. With the larger battery it, should be able to top 175 miles and could get close to the 190-mile mark.
[What we know about the 2026 Nissan Leaf]
But the company doesn’t plan to begin production of the Leaf S until later in 2026, possibly in the spring. That means a delay of up to six months from the redesigned Leaf’s launch means until Nissan dealers will get the bargain-priced base model to pull shoppers into dealerships.
If Nissan determines to continue with reduced production plans into 2026, the base Leaf S could be more easily found in advertising material than on dealers’ lots.