Nissan has decided to take a bold and historic step in the development of the electric car. It will build a full production electric car called the Nissan Leaf and it will compete head-to-head, in terms of price and features, with other small cars on the market.
Vancouver was the only Canadian city included in the pre-production inauguration tour of the Nissan Leaf. And we’ll get the Leaf (in 2011) before it goes to global production, but not before selected U.S. markets.
Making the switch from gas pump to electrical grid as smooth a transition as possible, for anyone who purchases of a Leaf, is another Nissan goal. In B.C., Nissan Canada will be working on this with the Province of British Columbia, the City of Vancouver and BC Hydro.
Representatives from both levels of government and BC Hydro were on hand at the event to announce a partnership agreement that will see British Columbia become the initial Canadian launch point for the Nissan Leaf in 2011.
“While the Leaf is not a car for everyone,” said Mark Grimm, president of Nissan Canada Inc., “80 per cent of Canadians drive less than 160 kilometres in a day. And at any point in time in your day, you’re probably no more than 100 metres from an electrical charge.”
“The [electrical] grid is everywhere, it’s closer than your corner gas station, so it’s just a matter of how we adapt to this new technology … and there’s more coming. Who would have thought, years ago, that I could get a computer signal though the air and get all my data, etc. This is a first step.”
The Leaf will seat five adults and can travel a distance of 160 kilometres on a single charge. The test-drive vehicle provided was a test mule called the EV-12. It was essentially a Nissan Versa fitted with the electric drivetrain that will be used in the Leaf.
Driving at the event was on a short closed track and while not the finished product, the smoothness of the drivetrain and agility of the EV-12 were still evident. Other electric vehicles I’ve driven tend to be jumpy off the line and have had a heavy-car, delayed response to steering inputs. It was also noiseless in operation, as expected.
The tailpipe-less Leaf will provide the environmentally conscious driver with a zero-emission option. Even taking into account the emissions from the electrical power source, Leaf can provide up to a 95-per-cent overall decrease in total CO2 emissions -according to Nissan.
Source: kelowna.com
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