Is it the start of an automotive revolution? The Nissan Leaf, slated to be the world’s first affordable, five-seat electric vehicle for the everyman† is coming to showrooms starting in late 2010. In the United States you can sign up to lease one for a fully refundable $99 deposit. But would you want to?
Here’s why you might:
The Leaf is a spacious, fun-to-drive vehicle. With maximum torque available at all speeds, the Leaf zips off the line and will send you from 0 to 60 mph in a more-than-respectable 6 seconds. The car has lots of vondrous, high tech features such as remote cell phone controls—on a hot day you can call your Leaf and ask it to pre-cool the car to a particular temperature; the Leaf will send you a text message when it is finished. The economics of Leaf ownership is appealing too. Powering a car through electricity costs a fraction of gasoline. And, of course, the Nissan Leaf is more environmentally-friendly than internal-combustion cars
Here’s why you might want to hold off on your Leaf purchase:
The largest issue, by far, is the car’s range. According to Nissan the Leaf can go only 100 miles (160 km) between charges. And even that figure is rather optimistic. At highway speeds expect to travel no more than 60 miles at one go. At electric stations you can charge the Leaf’s batteries from 20% to 80% full in about a half hour. But as yet few charging stations have been built. And, anyway, who wants to wait around at a glorified petrol station for 30 minutes?
Add that up and the Nissan Leaf has lots of potential as a second vehicle and for use around town. For use as a primary family vehicle electric car revolution still has a long distance to drive.
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† Cars like the Toyota Prius or forthcoming Chevy Volt are gasoline hybrids. Other purely electric vehicles are either very expensive, don’t have five seats or are scheduled to be available to the general public after the Leaf.
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