2021 electric Nissan LEAF – now with ‘Canto’ Sound

The 2021 Nissan LEAF goes on sale in the UK, and it now comes with Nissan’s new ‘Canto’ Acoustic Vehicle Alerting System (AVAS).

The electric Nissan LEAF may have been around for longer than just about every other EV – and about to be usurped by the new electric Ariya SUV – but Nissan has been busy keeping it in the news.

In the last year, Nissan has celebrated building 500,000 LEAFs – the 500,000th coming off the line in Sunderland – added a bit of extra kit and reduced the price of the LEAF, delivered the LEAF10 to celebrate a decade of the LEAF and responded to the cut in PiCG by massaging prices once more.

Now the 2021 Nissan LEAF goes on sale, but there is no further price cut or extra equipment, but there is the arrival of (the now compulsory) new Acoustic Vehicle Alerting System (AVAS), which features sounds Nissan calls ‘Canto’.

Canto has been created by Nissan in Japan, and tweaked for the UK and Europe, using a spectrum of ‘sonic palettes’ which vary in tone and pitch depending on whether the car is accelerating, decelerating or reversing.

Paul Speed-Andrews, Nissan’s ‘Noise’ guru, said:

After engineering the ‘Canto’ sound, we installed it to the LEAF MY21 to enable us to carry out both subjective and objective evaluations to better match the expectations of the European customer.

It was important that we not only created a sound that aligned with the new regulations but also matched Nissan’s brand image. We have always been pioneers in safety and innovation and it is great to know we are helping to shape the future of electrification.

It’s a shame to the silence of EVs is ending, but pedestrian safety is important so we’re going to have to get used to a chorus of whooshes, beeps and tones filling streets in the coming years.

Nissan LEAF ‘Canto’ Sound Video