Nissan LEAF – An Affordable New Electric Car
3 August 2009 | Green Cars | 4 Comments
We are living some incredible times. Big changes are about to take place in the way we think of electric vehicles. With worlds oil reserves much lower than evaluated, an alternative solution is needed more than ever and it’s becoming clearer that the electric car is one of the answers.
This is the message Nissan also tries to send with their first electric car, the LEAF. As I announced in a earlier post, the Japanese automaker presented on Sunday at the new HQ in Yokohama, their newest product, available in Europe, US and Japan late next year.
With an unofficial price tag of $25,000-$30,000 the car represents the first affordable model in the EV class. It is 100% electric and 100% emissions-free, which is great for the environment. The vehicle get it’s “juice” from a 24 kW/h battery pack made out of 192 lithium-manganese cells positioned beneath the floor, to ensure maximum interior space as well as drivers comfort. The recharging time is about 8 hours in the European countries, provided with 220-volts and double the time in the US, for example, with their lower voltages. The company also told about a more quicker, half an hour, with 80 percent charge, from a 480 volts supply, probably at future electric stations around the cities. LEAF has a range of 100 miles (160 km).
The car make its way through with a 108 HP (80 kW) AC motor and can reach speeds of 140 km/h(90 miles per hour).
The car’s design will turn many people’s head on the street, others will turn away. The interior is very bright-colored but comes with a futuristic display.
The company is aware of the car’s modest range, that’s why they incorporated a system, called “EV-IT”, fully informing the driver about the status of the battery, the distance until the next station or if the accumulator will last to get you home.
In explaining the reason for choosing the car’s name, the company declared “the Leaf name is a significant statement about the car itself. Just as leaves purify the air in nature, so Nissan Leaf purifies mobility by taking emissions out of the driving experience.”
To conclude, even if more of a city EV, the affordable new electric, zero-emission car is the first one to be a decent rival to the gas engine vehicles and takes some good first steps towards a possible mass adoption of the electric car.
Tags: affordable, battery, electric car, electric stations, electric vehicles, emission-free, Environment, EV, LEAF, Nissan, zero-emission
What a nice car! I especially attracted by its bright-colored futuristic interior, must very comfortable sitting in it!
Here’s hoping they can use carbon fiber and other polymeric plastics and metals other than heavy steels to lighten and give better performance to small cars! This is not likely to fly in America where the people are so large as to erase all benefit but in Europe, and most Asian countries where folks are of normal dimension, chopping a fes pounds off of body weight can extend life of cars and distance traveled per charge, so to speak!
Is an electric car truly zero-emission? What about the by products of electrical generation to charge the car? Even solar panels take a lot of energy to manufacture and produce waste in the process.
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