Engineering That Truly Makes Nissan LEAF Awesome

Most people that look at the front of a Nissan LEAF are normally drawn to the headlights as they truly are unique. Did you know that Nissan engineers had to redesign LEAF's headlights because of mirror noise?

Almost like eyes that are starring and trying to focus, Nissan LEAF headlights are positioned in such a way as to immediately become noticeable upon first encounter.

Since I have had my 2013 Nissan LEAF, I have traveled to and from many events to promote all types of Electric Vehicles. It is strange how people start off a little unsure about the lights and the front of the car since it really isn’t something that other cars are noted for.

The average person I come in contact with at these events is always so much more accepting of this car once I explain exactly what these lights are designed to do. They have two purposes.

The most obvious is for light at night for the road. As a pure electric car that is a quiet car, sounds you normally don’t hear in a gas car are heard in the electric cars. As a result, during testing of this car, the Nissan Engineers noticed that the side mirrors ended up causing a whistling noise which they found annoying while test driving. As a result, they redesigned the lights so that the wind is redirected away from the mirrors so as to help minimize unwanted noise.

Now, Nissan has installed a noise maker for low speeds that sits under the driver's side fender behind the bumper. I didn’t like it so one day I disconnected it. Even without that noise maker, these LEAF lights perform extremely well.

I eventually reconnected the noise maker because as a result of my disconnecting it I lost the back up noise for reverse operation. Since I have kids, I felt this was more important to keep at this point so I suffer the noise maker even thought I initially didn’t like it.

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