Nissan LEAF affordable electric car launched

Nissan LEAF affordable electric car launched

Nissan LEAF
Nissan has unveiled their first affordable, zero-emission car. Titled the Nissan LEAF, it is a “medium-size hatchback” that comfortably seats five adults and has a range of more than 160 km to satisfy real-world consumer requirements. And the most interesting part is it is almost ready for production, and slated for consumer release in late 2010.

Pricing details will be announced closer to start of sales, but Nissan expects the LEAF to be competitively priced in the range of a well-equipped compact vehicle. As an added benefit, because the vehicle has less mechanical complexity than a traditional petrol-powered car, Nissan says the car will require less maintenance.

The Nissan LEAF is powered by “laminated” compact lithium-ion batteries, which generate power output of over 90 kW, while its electric motor delivers 80kW, equivalent to 280 Nm.

Unlike regular vehicles, the Nissan LEAF’s powertrain has no tail pipe, and thus has no emissions of CO2 or other greenhouse gases. A combination of the LEAF’s regenerative braking system and innovative lithium-ion battery packs enables the car to deliver a driving range of more than 160 km on one full charge, enough for a few days of driving. However, top speed is a bit over 140 kph.

The Nissan LEAF can be charged up to 80% of its full capacity in just under 30 minutes with a quick charger. Charging at home through a 200V outlet is estimated to take approximately eight hours, convenient only as an overnight option.

The LED headlights provide yet one more benefit in that they consume just 10% of the electricity of conventional lamps.

Nissan LEAF employs an exclusive advanced IT system. Connected to a global data centre, the system can provide support, information, and entertainment for drivers 24 hours a day.

Nissan LEAF

The dash-mounted monitor displays Nissan LEAF’s remaining power, or “reachable area,” in addition to showing a selection of nearby charging stations.

Another state-of-the-art feature is the ability to use mobile phones to turn on air-conditioning and set charging functions – even when Nissan LEAF is powered down. An on-board remote-controlled timer can also be pre-programmed to recharge batteries.

The first of Nissan’s EVs will be manufactured in Japan, with additional capacity planned for U.S. plants. Meanwhile, lithium-ion batteries are being produced in Japan, with additional capacity planned for the USA, the UK and Portugal, and other sites for investment are under study around the world. Plans include sales only in Japan, Europe and the United States, where it should easily undercut the hyped Chevrolet Volt and Tesla Sedan that will debut at around the same time. Nissan’s only problem would be convincing people to buy a car called LEAF.

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Comments

  1. inside looks intersting but the outside is so ugly

  2. the pix are of a concept so it will look fancy. and it is ugly from the outside. what’s with the name? 😛

  3. Who cares the look? Just need an affordable green car and hope Nissan will set up the price to compete with Chinese crs.

  4. looks are very important in today’s market and everyone cares about it.

  5. Looks are WAY more important! We dont need little ugly cars… we need more big ol’ trucks!

  6. Actually, Compact cars of today look very gay & ugly… If only they design them to look more decent…

    Plus i doubt it reliability as an electric car.. “GM killed their EV about some decade ago for a reason”…

  7. environmentalists need to think deeper. electric is NOT the future. besides the fact tht we are ‘moving the problem’ to coal power station, there is another factor tht no one seems to bring up: is there enough lithium for every car, laptop and mobile in this world? and then comes recyling ALL those batteries once they lose their capacity.
    hydrogen is the future!

  8. Electric cars dont need lots of maintenance & arent as complicated as hydrogen powered or internal combustion car… They r a money saver… No oil, no clutch, no spareparts aside from brakepads & batteries… This is the future of cars…

    Hydrogen powered cars r an excuse used by many carmakers to build vehicles that will need replacement parts inorder to keep themselves in business… Look how GM which was the 1st to come with a fully functional & mass produced electrical car & then killed the project cuz the car was too efficent…

    Now they & many other carmakers moved to hydrogen.. Yet i dont know how nissan will manage with the electrical car since it has proven to be not that profitable..

    Electrical cars r the future.. Yet i wont drive any of them…
    Give me an old fashioned Internal combustion car any day like a nissan patrol or a mustang over this…

  9. I’m talking about FCEV hydrogen cars. hydrogen fusing with oxygen produces electricity to power electric motors.
    electric cars fix one environmental prob but bring up another. and hydrogen is more abundant than lithium and you can refuel faster with hydrogen. and for the IC engine lovers, BMW has shown tht hydrogen can be used in an IC engine which sounds less refined than diesels but can be refined further in future.

  10. Technically complexity of a hydrogen system makes the diesel engine simpler & more efficent.. Hydrogen is not the ideal solution..

    People want something cheap & easy & reliable.. electrical cars win on that part…

  11. only 1 question at it stake…if it is affordable..no more question ask but it now while it’s hot and see the advantage of electric cars with less maintenance??…hmmm where i can charge my car??? 🙂

  12. LOL, looks like a frog……. 😀

  13. Plug it in your house.. overnight..

  14. Oil sucks.
    electric cars are far superior, they are 30% mor eefficient, more powerful – did u know that internal combustion engines have 0 usable torque onder 1,000 rpm? electric cars have full torque at 0 rpm.

  15. You forget though, it takes ALOT of electricty to strip oxygen from water in order to make Hydrogen in the 1st place. Its just as bad.

  16. the outside looks fine and the inside looks very cool! i would buy one!the electricty bill will go up but wouldnt you want to pay a higher electricty bill then pay $100 every two weeks for gas?…..thats just my thoughts

  17. Electric, like stated before is completely gay. I have’nt seen one yet that can get out of its own way, let alone mine. Unless they do something to give it more power and working ability, electric won’t go anywhere. I would love to see an electric vehicle tow, plow, or anyhing that really requires actual power.

  18. @WILL – You’ve never seen an electric car that “can get out of its own way?” Look at this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BqqtJpfZElQ

    Now you have. I bet that electric car can’t tow or plow well, but electric cars have a real chance at succeeding if our auto industries put in the effort and make the power units module so newer battery technologies can easily replace older ones in production.

  19. To me it looks a viable option depending on price. I work shifts and do a 20 mile round trip 4 days a week so this should have the capicity to serve me on 1 charge with a little contingency. About 80% of my leisure journeys are less than 100 miles BUT what will I do for the other 20%. As a 2 car family I will still need a “Burner” for those journeys so while it might be viable for me I suspect I am in a small minority.

  20. Leaf – its green, get it?

  21. “Electric, like stated before is completely gay. I have’nt seen one yet that can get out of its own way, let alone mine.”

    http://www.teslamotors.com/

    While extremely pricey, I am pretty sure this could “get out of its own way” no problem.

  22. “Electric, like stated before is completely gay. I have’nt seen one yet that can get out of its own way, let alone mine.”

    You’re a moron

    Electric car beats Ferrari

    http://www.flixya.com/video/333349/Ferrari_vs._Electric_Car_Drag_Racing_0-60_3.6_sec.

  23. Elictric … hummm means no power no drifting….

  24. Lets put powerful magnets around the electric car so that w*nkers cant tailgate and crashes will be more like dodgem cars..where the idiots will be repelled…but remember wear a seat-belt everyone and make sure the kids are secured…no sense in being a crash test dummy.

  25. interesting that those who seemingly drive big cars associate electric cars as being gay. sounds like a few people here have problems either with their own sexuality or penis size because they can’t afford to give up their big ‘looks’ for something that’s actually practical. i understand that there is nostalgia associated with the hum and loudness of gasoline engines, but also remember that gasoline engines are only one step after a steam engine, which is now over 150 years old. come on… lets step into the present instead of lingering in the past. as for those thinking that electricity just shifts the carbon footprint to dirty coal. you are correct, however, if you actually did your research, you would discover that the carbon footprint of using coal for electricity vs. gasoline as a propulsion power, the impact is dramatically less. over 20 times less. dude that thinks GM killed the electric car for a reason needs to actually do some reading. if anything, GM killed the electric car because you didn’t buy one. at least there is some car company out there willing to change the world instead of keep the world the same. for example: my car is rated at 70mpgs (yes, it actually is) and it was made in 2000, as of current, it’s still the highest EPA rated car… come on…….. my car is OLD and it still is kicking every car’s ass in mpgs.

  26. Electric is extremely efficient. I’m a physics teacher and a car lover (including old gas guzzling muscle cars) Battery technology is the limiting factor in making electric cars more successful, but batteries are coming along quickly. Hydrogen is not feasable because the amount of energy it takes to “produce” hydrogen by the process of electrolysis which is done by spliting H2O into hydrogen and oxygen. THEN YOU STILL HAVE TO TRANSPORT THE HYDROGEN TO A “gas station”. Also Hydrogen has a much lower energy density than current battery technology, which means you will not go very far on a tank of “gas”. Battery Tech will continue to improve, especially when we start using them in mass production settings involving cars. And as far as power? Batteries and motors have the potential of having more power than internal combustion. For example. the MASSIVE space shuttle transportation vehicle and many huge vehicles like it are powered by a deisel engine which powers a generator and in turn powers huge electric motors. In the future, batteries will replace the engine.

  27. Hydrogen is too complex and a i think is a failure… Electrical cars were once abandoned by GM and many car makers fought against GM EV back in the days which makes me think why on earth everyone is now happily embracing electrical cars again? I mean they dont have much spare parts or maintenance except on batteries and brake pads which was the 1st reason why car makers hated them.. I believe electrical cars can be quite efficient, technically simple and potential cars for the future.. Lets see how it goes, how oil companies view this new trend and how the industry would change cuz of the demand on new and more materials in the auto industry like lithium for the batteries..

  28. This car is nice but it looks bad from back. It’s like the Maruti swift. Bumpy look. Amazing from inside.

  29. For how long the battery is gonna hold the charge? Is this vehicle for long drive? (If some one wants to trael 2 days straight?)

  30. I can’t wait for my new Leaf. Oh it’s ugly all right, and it certainly will look like a Orphan Step Child next to my MB AMG55 and red Corvette roadster I keep for weekend drives, when I’m not in the mood to fire up my Fatboy HD. So why a Leaf, simple, so I don’t look like a idiot when I go to Whole Foods or Trader Joes to do my grocery shopping for my newly adopted Vegan life style. So why does a man that can afford anything go green? Because i’m quite comfortable with the size of my penis and sexuality. Nope, but needed express that. It’s because my wife, 35 years younger than me is teaching me how to live healthier and longer. Maybe she’s just being self centered and wants the world to be in better shape when she gets to be my age?

  31. I want to buy a Nissan leaf in Dubai. How can I buy it?

  32. I CANT WAIT TO GET MINES.
    PEOPLE WAKE UP. I love trucks too, they have a purpose, but as a truck..or SUV.
    Gas and diesel prices are going up and will continue to go up as long as consumers will pay for it. Especially as long as these “Think Tanks” convince you that large (cost more to operate) vehicles are what you want.

    Wake Up America.

  33. I think it looks great inside and out. It would be perfect in every way for me except when we have a holiday in this country where it would be useless because of the range.

    Shame about the price though. That’s the problem when you design a car from the ground up, it turns out sooooo expensive. If they’d have put an electric drive train in a regular petrol car it would have kept the cost right down. There is no economy of scale with a totally new car like this and one that won’t be sold in high numbers. The lottery is my only hope!

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