Nissan Leaf News
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To battery swap or fast-charge? That’s the question facing automakers worldwide as they decide on the best standard to adopt to charge the latest generation of electric cars. But just like the early days of video cassettes, a standard war is waging in which there can only be one winner. And despite the quicker, fully automated world of battery swapping the technology backed by Renault-Nissan and Better Place is facing an uphill struggle to become the accepted technology for charging electric car batteries for long distance trips. Theoretically Perfect in a Perfect World Just like the...
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BREAKING: Nissan Leaf To Get Faster Charger 'In a Year Or So'You just never know what you'll hear at conferences. You might, for instance, hear Nissan America's director of product planning, Mark Perry, casually mention that the Nissan Leaf electric car now permits Level II 240-Volt charging at 3.3 kilowatts--"and we'll raise that in a year or so." In other...
John Voelcker -
Electric-Car Wars: Chevy Volt Still Outselling Nissan LeafBattle of the Titans it ain't. But for the third month in a row, Chevrolet sold more Volt range-extended electric cars than Nissan delivered Leaf plug-ins. During February, Nissan delivered 67 Leaf battery electric hatchbacks, bringing its two-month total to 154. Adding in the 19 delivered in...
John Voelcker -
2012 Renault Fluence ZE: 2011 Geneva Motor Show, Quick DriveThe Geneva motor show has always been known for its green vehicles, but electric cars played a greater part than ever this year. French marque Renault was one of the main players with its range of four production electric vehicles. As part of the "Papillon Vert" (Green Butterfly) exhibition...
Antony Ingram -
To Sound or Not to Sound: Nissan Removes Beeper from U.K. LeafThe automotive world is, it seems, a very strange place. Less than a month after Hyundai admitted it had delayed the 2011 Sonata Hybrid launch in the U.S. to remove a feature that let the driver disable its virtual engine sound at speeds below 12 miles per hour, Nissan Europe has confirmed that it...
Nikki Gordon-Bloomfield -
Nissan Goes Solar With Electric Car Charging Station at TN HQWhile the majority of its vehicles will be gasoline powered for the foreseeable future, Nissan North America has taken more steps towards zero emissions motoring for its headquarters in Franklin, TN with an 18 vehicle solar charging station to supplement the already existing electric vehicle...
Nikki Gordon-Bloomfield -
Nissan has been having a pretty good ride since it announced the Nissan Leaf and now that customers are actually getting their cars delivered people are on pins and needles to see how livable the cars really are. The success of the Leaf aside, the fact remains that Nissan has succeeded to be the first to mass-market an all-electric car. Yep, this time they beat Ford to it and for their leading edge thinking Fast Company has named them in their “50 Most Innovative Companies” list. The number they were assigned on the list of 50 might surprise you too. We won’t keep you in...
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Europeans Suffer as 2011 Nissan Leaf MSRP Rises to $50,310Oh dear, Nissan. You’re struggling to fulfil worldwide demand for your first ever production electric vehicle, and then you go and put the price of your revolutionary car up. At least, that’s what buyers in Europe are faced with from March 1. Even before the first Nissan Leaf has been...
Nikki Gordon-Bloomfield -
Has Your Electric Car Stopped Working? Flatbed It, Don't TowFabulous creations that electric cars are, they're still machines designed by mere mortals and as a result, they may occasionally go wrong. As they're operated by mere mortals too, you may find one time that you're unable to reach your destination on a charge thanks to a miscalculation, or you've...
Antony Ingram -
Want an Electric Car Like the Nissan Leaf? Prepare to WaitYou’ve seen the adverts, been to the test-drive and placed down a $99 deposit for Nissan’s all-electric Leaf. Of course, there’s something you probably weren’t told about at the time of reserving a place in the queue. Patience. Save for a few hundred lucky individuals, the...
Nikki Gordon-Bloomfield -
VIDEO: Hack of 2011 Nissan Leaf Provides Faster Charging, But is it Safe?Charge Anxiety, the fear that your electric car won’t charge up as quickly as you need it to may be one step further away if you’re a 2011 Nissan Leaf owner willing to throw caution to the wind and hack your $25,000 bundle of joy. At least that’s the message coming from a select...
Nikki Gordon-Bloomfield -
Nissan ESFlow Electric Sportscar Concept: 10 Facts You Didn't KnowYou heard the announcement, saw the artists’ sketches, speculated on its specifications and followed our live tweets from its pre-2011 Geneva Auto Show sneak-peek press day - but after a day in its presence here are 10 things we’d like to share with you about Nissan’s ultra-sexy...
Nikki Gordon-Bloomfield -
In a renewed push for clean energy, President Obama called for one million electric cars to be on American roads by 2015 last month. But is that goal realistic? The government released a report this week saying that by its “conservative” estimates for 2015, the electric car supply in the U.S. will total 1.2 million cars. One eyebrow-raising note in its estimates, though: The report projects supply of the Nissan Leaf (pictured) in the U.S. this year to be 25,000 cars. Nissan has reportedly delivered just 106 cars as of last week, although it says it’s ramping up production in...
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EXCLUSIVE: What Killed The Electric Car? For G-Wiz, Other Electric CarsIt’s been a mainstay of British eco-chic for nearly a decade, but the little Indian four-wheel ‘car’ which can be found buzzing around the streets of London will no longer be sold in the U.K. In an email earlier on today addressed to all G-Wiz owners Rudi Schogger, MD of...
Nikki Gordon-Bloomfield -
2011 Nissan ESFLOW Concept: What Do YOU Want to Know?Announced last week just three weeks ahead of its debut at the 2011 Geneva Motor Show, the Nissan ESFLOW Concept two-seat all-electric sports car has already created quite a stir. With a lightweight Aluminium chassis, composite body and the same laminated lithium-ion battery pack found in the 2011...
Nikki Gordon-Bloomfield -
How Child-Friendly is the 2011 Nissan Leaf?For those who don’t know or have forgotten, the name for Nissan’s first mass-produced electric car is an acronym: Leading Environmentally-friendly Affordable Family car. But is the 2011 Nissan Leaf really a family-friendly car? When examining a car for suitability for a family there are...
Nikki Gordon-Bloomfield -
Oil Exec Says Electric-Car Batteries 'Not Ready for Primetime'It's always good to hear the arguments against electric cars. Some are valid, some are idiotic, and some simply betray a lack of knowledge about how the auto industry really works. Into that last category may go some comments by one William M. Colton, ExxonMobil’s vice president for corporate...
John Voelcker -
Could Your Electric Car Insurance Be Higher Than You Expect?Arranging insurance for your new car is always a stressful and unpleasant business. Often overlooked, it has a direct impact on your driving habits and your pocket book. But unlike gasoline cars, electric cars are not yet fully known by the insurance industry, causing some potential headaches for...
Nikki Gordon-Bloomfield -
Just weeks ahead of the 2011 Nissan Motor Show, Nissan has released pictures and videos of its latest all-electric car: The 2011 ESFLOW concept, something we’d heard was in development a while ago. Built from the ground up from scratch, the all-electric two-seat sport coupe concept car features dual motor rear-wheel drive and enough torque to power it from 0-62 mph in under five seconds. Using lightweight Aluminium chassis, composite body and the same laminated lithium-ion batteries found in the 2011 Nissan LEAF, Nissan claims a range of over 150 miles per charge. Designed primarily as...
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A Tale of Two Countries: How The U.S. and U.K. Sell The LEAFLike many customers in the U.S., our own Marty Padgett got to reserve his 2011 Nissan LEAF in April last year. And now, like so many of the expectant 20,000 who have signed up for a place in the queue to buy NIssan’s first mass-produced electric car, he’s been saddled with an...
Nikki Gordon-Bloomfield -
My Hummer Isn’t Electric? IRS Details False Tax Credit ClaimsDuring the first half of 2010, nearly 13,000 U.S. taxpayers wrongly claimed a staggering $33 million under the electric tax credit incentive scheme, a Treasury Department inspector general report has revealed. The credits, designed to encourage the uptake of plug-in hybrid and electric-only...
Nikki Gordon-Bloomfield -
Three is a Magic Number: One Family Gets Volt, LEAF and PriusIf you’re in the market for an electric car one of the biggest decisions to make after you’ve decided to buy a plug-in vehicle is which one to choose. For one family in California, however the choice was far easier: Get one of each. And with good reason. Ten years ago marketing...
Nikki Gordon-Bloomfield -
Which Is Selling Better: 2011 Chevy Volt Or 2011 Nissan Leaf?The first business day of every month is when automakers release sales data for the previous month. Today, we got January's sales figures, which are an improvement over last January's. But the question that we keep hearing is: Which sells better, the 2011 Nissan Leaf or the 2011 Chevrolet Volt?...
John Voelcker -
EPA Sticks To Its Guns, Still Considering Letter Grades For CarsDespite criticism from the auto industry, it looks like the EPA may be sticking to its guns and planning to launch new redesigned gas-mileage stickers for new cars that feature a prominent letter grade. The letter-grade scheme was one of two alternatives introduced for public comment last August...
Viknesh Vijayenthiran