Nissan News
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If it ever really needed to be said, Japanese car tastes can be... "alternative", to put it in polite terms. As well as their Kei-Jidosha class of city cars that are absolutely miniscule compared to U.S. monsters, the country has produced some fairly crazy production cars over the years. That trend seems to be continuing into the production of electric cars, too. Mitsuoka Like First to come out from the shade of Mount Fuji is the Mitsuoka Like, though personally we'd put it back in the shade so we don't have to spend too much time looking at it. Even the uninitiated of course will spot the...
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Nissan’s Kid-Friendly 2011 Leaf Electric Car Site: Pestering Propaganda?If you’re a parent you’ll know how eager companies are to convince your kids how important their product is. Be it the latest toy, a new film release or even a holiday location, advertising companies know that pester power is one of the most effective ways to get a parent to make a...
Nikki Gordon-Bloomfield -
First 2011 Nissan Leaf To Be Delivered To Customer on Dec 11Just days after Nissan confirmed that customer deliveries of the 2011 Leaf would commence in Japan on December 20, Nissan USA has confirmed that the very first customer vehicle will be delivered in a few days’ time, on December 11. The delivery will be to an unnamed Northern Californian...
Nikki Gordon-Bloomfield -
Who Killed The Chinese Electric Car? BYD Looks Away from EVsThe F3e is officially dead. According to sources cited by China Business News, the battery firm turned electric-car maker has ceased plans for commercial production of its four door electric sedan. There has been little mention of the all-electric sedan since its plug-in hybrid sibling, the F3DM...
Nikki Gordon-Bloomfield -
Moving Closer To Owning a Leaf: We Get To Choose Our DealerYou may not know it, but our Marty Padgett isn’t the only member of the High Gear Media editorial team to order a 2011 Nissan Leaf. Over 5,000 miles away on the west coast of England, I’ve also been waiting patiently in the queue for an email from Nissan letting me know when my Leaf...
Nikki Gordon-Bloomfield -
2011 Nissan Leaf Voted Car Of The Year In EuropeOur sister site GreenCarReports voted it the Best Car to Buy for environmental conscious customers and it looks like the judges in the European Car of the Year panel agree, awarding the 2011 Nissan Leaf this year’s winner in the prestigious awards. The all-electric hatch beat out the likes of...
Viknesh Vijayenthiran -
The 2011 Nissan Leaf all-electric car has been designated as Europe's 2011 Car of the Year, according to reports in Autocar and other media outlets. While the Leaf won our GreenCarReports 2011 Best Car To Buy award, the bulk of similar U.S. awards went instead to the 2011 Chevrolet Volt range-extended electric car. U.S.: Volt. Us: Leaf. Among others, Motor Trend and Automobile magazines gave the nod to the Volt, as did Green Car Journal, which runs its own Green Car of the Year awards here. And Car and Driver named the Volt one of its Top 10 cars. (Nissan notes it did not provide a Leaf to...
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Journalists Start To Question EPA Testing of EVs After Nissan LEAF ResultsOver the past couple of months AllSmallCars.com and our sister sites have published a lot about electric vehicles. In fact, AllCarsElectric.com is completely dedicated to electric car news, events and reviews. Earlier this week, I reported on the 2011 Nissan LEAF and the official EPA rating in...
Jonathan McGrew -
Did We Err On The Leaf, Or Is GM Volt Boosterism Bashing It?Last week at the 2010 Los Angeles Auto Show, we announced that the 2011 Nissan Leaf electric car was the winner of the GreenCarReports 2011 Best Car To Buy award. That same week, a flurry of other media outlets almost uniformly gave their "car of year" awards to the 2011 Chevrolet Volt...
John Voelcker -
Why The EPA Is Wrong about the 2011 Leaf Range And Nissan Is RightEarlier this week Nissan announced that it had finally received its EPA official ratings for the 2011 Nissan Leaf. Earlier this week our John Voelcker had a lot to say on its 99MPGe figure, indicating the equivalent miles-per-gallon fuel consumption of a car which runs on electricity. Yes, we know...
Nikki Gordon-Bloomfield -
LEAF Task Force: Nissan's Electric Car Soldiers Of FortuneIn 2011 a crack task force was sent to the United States by a Japanese manufacturer for a car that's making headlines. These men were promptly trained to be experts in their field. Today, wanted by thousands of owners, they survive as a rapid response unit. If you have a problem, if no one else can...
Antony Ingram -
Five Questions: Mac Heller, Coda Automotive Interim CEOIt can't have been a particular easy 2010 Los Angeles Auto Show for Coda Autmotive's newly minted interim CEO, Steven "Mac" Heller. Just one day before Coda hosted a reception at its new "Zen meets Tech" display booth at the greenest of all U.S. auto shows, the startup electric car company...
John Voelcker -
It looks like carmakers are going to make their quiet, electrically powered cars a lot noisier. And that's going to happen regardless of whether there's any actual data to support the notion that electric cars are so silent they pose a hazard to blind pedestrians. As of now, three different automakers have taken three different approaches, with more likely to be on the way in future models. Warbles, blips, or fake engine noises? The 2011 Nissan Leaf electric car automatically makes a kind of futuristic electronic warbling sound up to 12 miles per hour. Beyond that speed, tire noise suffices...
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Why Startup Coda Thinks It Can Compete Against Big AutoI just spoke to electric car startup Coda’s interim CEO Steven “Mac” Heller, who is stepping in since former chief executive Kevin Czinger stepped down. Heller talked to us from Los Angeles Auto Show, where Coda is showing off its all-electric sedan — and where automotive...
VentureBeat's GreenBeat -
EPA Officially Rates 2011 Nissan LEAF with 99-MPGNo that isn’t a typo; the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) rated the Nissan LEAF with a 99-combined mpg. If you are looking for how that breaks out into city and highway, the EPA has stamped the LEAF with a 92 city/106 highway mpg rating. If you are going to ask us how they calculated...
Jonathan McGrew -
EPA Rates 2011 Nissan Leaf at 99 MPGE, 73 Mile RangeJust how fuel efficient is an electric car? That’s been the question facing the EPA for months as it has battled the ratings system to give consumers a realistic and useful way of comparing electric cars against gasoline counterparts. Now we know. The EPA has decreed that the 2011 Nissan Leaf...
Nikki Gordon-Bloomfield -
Idiocy: EPA Rates 2011 Nissan Leaf 'Gas Mileage' At 99 MPGSo it's come down to this, has it? The U.S. car-buying public is apparently so stupid that the Environmental Protection Agency has to rate the efficiency of an all-electric car that burns no gasoline in ... miles per gallon. [facepalm] That's the only possible reaction to the news this afternoon...
John Voelcker -
Cheap Insurance For EVs? LEAF May Benefit, Will Others?With all the talk of purchase price, charging costs, tax incentives, congestion charging exemptions and maintenance costs for EVs, there's one financial area which often gets overlooked - insuring them. With so few EVs on the road it's been difficult to gauge whether they'll cost more or less than...
Antony Ingram -
We often get asked by readers just how much it will cost to run an EV. And while we’re able to say that an EV costs less to run once purchased than a gasoline car we’ve had to guess refer them to their local utility company for exact pricing. So what if you could enter into a monthly service contract with an energy provider to provide electric vehicle charging equipment and power in much the same way you pay use your cellphone? Is it a sensible idea, or an overpriced way to extract money from EV owners? Enter NRG Energy. Yesterday it announced the first privately funded electric...
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Need Juice? 7 Home Charging Solutions for Your Electric CarYou’ve read the reports, drooled over the spy shots and saved your pennies for an all-electric or plug-in hybrid electric car. But do you know how you’re going to charge your new car at home, the office or at your parents’ place? There are many different chargers available now or...
Nikki Gordon-Bloomfield -
Electric Vehicle Conversion Fires: What You Need to KnowEarlier this month, a warehouse containing memorabilia owned by rocker Neil Young was involved in a three-alarm fire that destroyed many priceless possessions. Among the charred remains in the San Carlos fire was a classic ’59 Lincoln Continental. Converted to a hybrid power train by...
Nikki Gordon-Bloomfield -
2010 Los Angeles Auto Show: Nissan Ellure Concept CarAt the 2010 Los Angeles Auto Show, Nissan has unveiled a concept design that points the way toward some of its next-generation sedan models—even though Nissan swears that its Ellure show car is not “intended as preview of any upcoming production model,” in the words of Shiro...
John Voelcker -
CODA Delays Rollout of Electric Car: Why We’re Not SurprisedBuilding any car is tough. Building an electric car is tougher. Automakers must devote time, skill, technology and financial investment to designing, engineering, and cutting costs for what is still far from a mainstream drivetrain. Even Nissan, whose Leaf won GreenCarReports’ Best Car To Buy...
Nikki Gordon-Bloomfield -
2011 Nissan Leaf: GreenCarReports Best Car To Buy 2011It’s been a long time coming. More than 80 years, in fact, since viable electric cars were offered to U.S. car buyers. Now, finally, at long last, it’s happened. The 2011 Nissan Leaf is the first practical, five-seat electric car—a full plug-in, running solely off grid...
John Voelcker