The 2026 Nissan Leaf's Taillights Are More Than Just Lights

With nearly 700,000 sales under its belt over 15 years, the new Leaf design is a big upgrade using Nissan's latest design language and incorporating an SUV-like style and stance. What has initially grabbed us, though, is Nissan's slick incorporation of what the brand calls its “2-3" iconography. At first glance, you may be unaware of what exactly that is, but it's a neat little Easter Egg in the Leaf's design that quite literally covers the interior and exterior in Nissan.

The first major place you'll spot the design is in the taillights. Since its design was revealed, many have referred to these as a nod to the Nissan 300ZX, but that's not actually the case. Instead, the design matches a logo Nissan trademarked a couple of years back, with two horizontal bars alongside three vertical ones. The significance of this is that in Japanese, 2-3 is pronounced “ni-san".

That means the rear of the new Leaf says Nissan three times over, including the central lettering. Or does it say "San-ni, Nissan, Nissan"? Damn symmetry.

You can also spot the 2-3 iconography in the headlights, the wheel designs and, with subtlety, in the cabin. On the front, the illuminated Nissan emblem is optional, so you can even have Nissan displayed three times across the front of the car. Nissan has pulled out all the tricks and language for the new Leaf, including motorized flush front door handles and "katana blade-like molding" accentuating the curved roofline; that element is a nod to the Nissan Z lineage.

According to the press release, the overall design is "simple and clean, yet with a more energetic feeling," but there's substance in the new styling in the aerodynamics. The new Leaf has a 0.26 drag coefficient, which is a point lower (as in, better) than the Toyota Prius's 0.27. Part of that is the seamless integration of the windscreen into its frame and its 45-degree spoiler controlling the air as it moves into the car's draft. That's impressive for a crossover.

Subtle 2-3 Interior Nods Are Almost Impossible To See

The integration of the 2-3 iconography inside the 2026 Nissan Leaf is so subtle we're having trouble spotting it in the photos. The steering wheel is a two-spoke unit with the rim made up of three parts, but that might be a reach. If you can spot any other examples, let us know in the comments.

Nissan describes the interior as "minimalist" but it's the same style as the latest Kicks model, with the most notable change being four buttons on the dashboard for the drive select rather than a lever in the center console. Replacing a single lever for four buttons is not something we would class as minimalist in design, although it does free up space for storage in the center console.

Upmarket Usually Means Up Cost

There's still no price available yet for the 2026 Nissan Leaf, but the general expectation is $32-34,000 compared to the outgoing model's $28,140.00. Fancy lights, wheels, and so on cost extra money, which is an interesting move for Nissan when no genuinely cheap EV exists yet, but the outgoing model is the most inexpensive on the market by almost $5,000. Nissan needs to make bold moves to survive, so hopefully the brand has made its calculations carefully.