Interestingly, unlike the current alt-fuel darlings from Toyota and Honda, Nissan has purposefully eschewed a fastback shape for a more formal five-door appearance. Shiro Nakamura, Nissan's senior vice president and chief creative officer (read: styling director) admits he wanted the car to be unique, but not so bizarre as to be off-putting to most car buyers:
"From the beginning, we did not want to make the car very strange, because one of the perceptions of the EV [is that] people think that EVs are toys, or cheap... that you cannot drive high-speed, that EV means 'not real car.' But the car we have is a real car – you can drive it at 140 kilometers, you can sit four or five passengers comfortably.