The Nissan Leaf Electric Car

November 14, 2009 - 10:34am — electricmaster

Nissan Leaf Electric CarNew electric car - way back in August of this year, Nissan unveiled the Leaf - it's flagship electric car. 

Today it resurfaced in the USA with a fresh airing as Nissan take it on tour around Los Angeles. The plan is to mass market the Leaf and release it to the USA, Europe and Japan at the end of 2010.

 

  • The stats:
  • The marketing speil says the Leaf will be priced in line with similar-sized cars.  From what we read Nissan seem to be suggesting this will be in relation to the same class of traditional fuel-based cars.  If this is the case it could become a serious market contender.
  • For the moment though Nissan are remaining non commital on quoting an actual price.
  • It is a five-passenger hatchback, designed to have an all-electric range of around 100 miles (160 km) while only costing around 1%-2% of an equivalent combustion engine car to run.
Nissan are aiming for this to be a mass market model and not just a niche electric vehicle.  It has more than a passing similarity to the Think Ox and we rekon these two could be serious competitors.  So watch this space.....
 
Nissan Leaf Electric Car
 

Adding the va-va-voom back in...

November 22, 2009 - 9:56am — electricmaster

One unintended side effect of the beautifully silent, smooth electric car ride is that car noise performs a useful function.  It let's pedestrians know you are there!  It's slightly ironic, given the amount of time, money and effort that has gone into making cars quieter that now electric car manufacturers are looking at ways to add some noise back in to help warn pedestrians, especially those who rely heavily on hearing - the visually impaired. 

Engineers working on the Leaf have been presenting their ideas recently, a chime, a melody, a vroooom?  Lord McColl, a tory peer has even just recently suggested fitting a cowbell!!  Perhaps somewhat jokingly.  The main research into this has been in Japan and the USA amid transport safety concerns. 

Who would have thought we could make cars too quiet?  We just hope they don't got for the mobile phone model, with electric cars able to play 100s of equally annoying tones.  How about the sound of a diesel black cab, now that is distinctive!