My thoughts on the Nissan LEAF
So it has really been a long time coming I think that we have a fully electric car for family use. I personally have wondered if this was ever going to happen. When you hear stories about the oil companies not wanting electric cars to be developed then you wonder if it ever will come to the masses. Of course we have had the Toyota Prius hybrid car for a while as the main option in the green automotive industry, but this is a whole other ball game with a totally electric car.
The car itself is called the LEAF (Leading, Environmentally Friendly, Affordable, Family Car) and it is a zero emissions, 100% electric car with no gasoline required. The car was released onto the market in December 2010 in the US and a few other countries, with the release date in the UK being February 2011.
It looks like a nice standard family car with 5 doors so it will appeal to the main market and I think it actually looks a quite attractive car. It can travel at speeds up to 90mph and it’s range is about 100 miles before you will need to plug it in and charge it up again.
It does come with a few nice extras including the Nissan Navigation System, alloy wheels, bluetooth hands free system and the one thing that I personally find essential when buying a car – cup holders! (and even better, it also has bottle holders!) The audio system also sounds pretty good and of course you can plug your iPod in it 🙂
The price as always for a green car is going to be higher than your everyday petrol car but this is only to be expected and with the cost of petrol/gasoline increasing what seems like daily people are realising this could be a good investment. Cost in the US is around $25,000 but there are certain tax credits available.
US Pre-Orders Are A Sell Out
So, 6 months before the car is launched and the Nissan LEAF electric car sold out. The car was available in the US for online registration and buyers were required to put down a fully refundable $99 registration payment for the right to buy the car. Nissan have been overwhelmed with the number of applications that were made and the car has now officially sold out. The price of the car in the US is lower to that of other countries as Nissan said they wanted to make more sales there so it looks like that incentive has worked. Or maybe Americans are just becoming greener, or like the idea of saving lots of money on fuel costs or of taking advantage of the federal rebates, who knows!
Government Incentives to Buy the Nissan LEAF in the UK
It has been announced in the UK that the government will offer a £5,000 incentive towards the purchase of a Nissan LEAF car which will bring the price down to approximately £25,000. Although this is still an expensive car for an average family, you need to take into account that it will only cost around £2 to charge the car up with electricity. So, assuming you can go 100 miles on a full charge and it would normally cost you around £16 to go 100 miles with conventional fuel, then say you drove 8,000 miles a year, you would save over £1,000 a year just on fuel.*
* estimated based on price per gallon of £5.35 and fuel economy of 33 mpg.
Recharging An Electric Car
One of the biggest problems that may put people off buying an electric car is where to recharge them. Most electric cars car be recharged through a standard electric point so you can charge your car from home. However, if you are planning a longer journey and need to charge your car on the way then you may need to find a public charging point. These are becoming more common and there is beginning to be a network of public charging posts installed. in time these will become more commonplace but in the meantime the car will most likely just be used for shorter journeys where the owner is able to charge the car up themselves.
There is also the issue of hong long does it take to charge up an electric car? Well the answer in the case of the Nissan LEAF is it takes an 8 hour charge on a standard 220/240V power supply to fully charge. There are of course other variations but the option to take a long journey in one day is one that is not really going to be possible. However, to drive around town will not be a problem.
Nissan LEAF Top Gear Review
Recently the hugely popular TV show Top Gear reviewed the Nissan Leaf with Jeremy Clarkson taking it for a ride to the seaside. Although the car itself got a good review – nice looking with a good feel and good features, the main issue that the Top Gear team had was with the recharging. For starters they found it hard to find a point to actually recharge the car. It appears that Nissan will be adding ‘quick charge’ point to all of their dealerships in the coming years which will be able to charge your Nissan LEAF up in 30 minutes. That may sound good but at the moment they are not there to be used. Also, quick charging the battery will seriously affect the battery life, possibly destroying it in as little as 3 years.
Even if you use the normal slow charging way of topping up the battery the life of the battery is likely to be only as much as 10 years maximum and the cost of replacing the battery is estimated at £7,000. So in addition to the high purchase price of the car the price of the battery may pretty much negate any cost savings made on fuel. In fact Clarkson commented that if you charge the car up at certain times of the day it may cost you up to £8 to charge it fully – just to take you 100 miles.
So the question raised was – ‘is this a white elephant rather than the future of motoring?’
