Green Car Debut
Nissan Turns Over New Leaf, Unveils Electric Car
Nissan is set to sell the first "affordable, zero-emission vehicle," an all-electric hatchback.
By Amy Linn, 8-03-09
Get your motors running, electric car devotees: Nissan on Sunday unveiled its first all-electric car, the Leaf, according to a report in Grist from Agence France-Presse. Nissan’s mid-sized hatchback is slated to go on sale in late 2010 in Japan, the United States, and Europe, the Grist story says.
Nissan hopes the pure electric vehicle will “lead the way to a zero-emission future” and attract hordes of eco-conscious buyers, many of whom long for an affordable car that is greener than today’s hybrids. The Leaf can travel more than 100 miles on a single charge, with a top speed of 87 miles per hour, Nissan said. Company executives, who held a press conference about the car at Nissan headquarters in Japan, did not give a list price for the Leaf, but said it would cost about the same as a comparable gas-powered model.
Although it’s being billed as the world’s first affordable electric car, the Leaf won’t be the first all-electric car to get to today’s marketplace. Mitsubishi Motors is already rolling out its i-MiEV minicar, and Fuji Heavy Industries is selling the Subaru Plug-in STELLA, according to Grist.
Here’s what Nissan chief executive Carlos Ghosn told Agence France-Presse about the new auto:
--“The Leaf is totally neutral to the environment: there is no exhaust pipe, no gasoline-burning engine. There is only the quiet, efficient power provided by our own lithium-ion battery packs.” (The battery packs aren’t included: they will be leased separately. But Ghosn said the monthly battery costs will be be less than the cost of gasoline.)
--Owners will be able to recharge the battery at home in about eight hours, or juice it up in about 30 minutes at electric recharging stations.
“We need to invest a lot of money to build the car plants and the battery plants at a moment where all the auto companies are saving investments,” as Ghosn was quoted in Grist. “But there is such a high potential that we [will] go ahead with it.”
[End of article]Totally neutral to the environment? Wake up! Most of our electricity comes from burning coal.
Comment By Kitty, 8-04-09What a babe magnet. yeah. right.
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The next billionaire will be the guy who develops a battery that allows a car to have a 300 mile range and can be charged without use of fossil fuels. Get to work!
Seriously, battery technology is the next big tech hurdle. We have lots of ways to produce energy, all with their own shrill proponents, but they all share the same problem...lack of storage capacity. Unemployed engineers, heads up!!
If you want to drive a battery operated car then go ahead. Just don't force everyone else to drive one, too.
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Kitty - I'm not sure where the nanny state argument comes from in this discussion so I'll let it go. But I bet you've never driven an electric car (of course, most people haven't) but if you did I bet you'd change your mind. When battery technology catches up and weight concerns don't limit them as they do now the performance of electric cars will astound most people. Put a 200 hp DC electric motor in a car and you wouldn't be able to hang on to the steering wheel.
Comment By Kitty, 8-05-09Greg - Change my mind? Forget it. Don't even bother trying.
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Kitty - That's the kind of thinking we love to see on a DISCUSSION board.
Comment By Kitty, 8-05-09Happy to oblige :~)
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I agree with Joe Bob. "Totally neutral to the environment" is deliberately deceptive. And I would hope that any tuned-in environmentalist would see through it.
Electricity doesn't magically appear at your outlet... somewhere a big dynamo is spinning to generate it. It might be a hydroelectric facility, or a wind turbine. But more likely it's icky coal or nasty nuclear.
And Greg is right, too. Figure out a way to economically store electricity - or even heat or cold - and you can write your own ticket.
The power for your electric car can come from solar panels installed on the garage roof. It does not have to come from coal. Most people don't realize that all the technology we need for clean power is already here. The only real problem with the best of alternatives is the price. For $100,000, right now, you can outfit your home with a machine that will separate hydrogen from the rain water collected in your gutters, and a hydrogen generator that will power your entire house. If that price gets to $20,000, such a system would become economically viable. Believe me, the big utilities know this and they are doing everything they can to keep people on the grid and away from home hydrogen. Like everything else in this country, wealthy and powerful lobbies will continue to have tremendous influence in "energy reform".
Comment By Greg Taylor, 8-05-09While Loren and I agree, basically, on the need for and uses of alternative power, one of the reasons these arguments are ridiculed is because of the misinformation in letters like Lorens. Such devices as he describes certainly exist, but what power source cracks the water molecules into hydrogen and oxygen? ELECTRICITY! Where does THAT electricity come from? The device is not a perpetual motion machine. Also, it is completely false to claim that the rainwater in your gutters will provide enough hydrogen to power your entire house. I'd have to do a little chemistry, but I'm pretty sure the mole weight of the hydrogen of all the rain water you could collect in Portland might run your car but not your house. And in Boise?!!? Not a chance.
Comment By Mickey Garcia, 8-05-09Electric vehicles are a big improvement even if you need a small hydrocarbon burning generator to charge the batteries for long distance runs which should evolve into fuel cells which will produce electricity with less pollution. If we supply our total energy needs with 60% nuclear and 40% some combination of clean coal, shale, tar sands, solar, wind, geothermal, & wave, we will become a net energy exporting country and have cleaner air to breath, instead of sending nearly a trillion dollars overseas annually to buy petroleum products.
Comment By Mehmnet, 8-06-09Amy Linn: how could you be duped into printing what is ostensibly a big PUBLIC RELATIONS piece for Nissan???
You obviously haven't researched this out in the name of journalism.
If this car uses electricity, it is still burning fossil fuels - not to mention the manufacture of these new car batteries means lots of toxic waste being released into the environment.
And what is the carrying capacity of these new electric cars?
Same as an SUV? I DON'T THINK SO.
Amy: next time, re-read your high-school journalism text book, especially the chapter on fair and unbiased reporting.
There's a convenient recycle stream for batteries at your local auto parts store. Large power plants burning fossil fuels produce less pollution per electric vehicle mile than individual vehicles burning fossils fuels. Nobody has been duped.
Comment By robert, 11-29-09Agreed. I see many people building their own <a >hydrogen generators</a> to save money on gas bills. Seems like the trend is gonna rise soon and most of us would be running our cars on water
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