In mid July I had mentioned that Nissan was working on the first ever Zero-Emission-Vehicle or ZEV that would include wireless charging. Well that car has been released. This first version of course will require you to plug it in to a charging station, but it’s still exciting because it is the first fully electric car that consumers will actually be able to purchase.
The Nissan Leaf will be released in 2011 and will have a max speed of 90 miles per hour and will roughly go around 100 miles on a full charge (so this is obviously a commuting car). It is geared towards families as it’s tag line is: “5 passengers, 5 doors”. And as you can see by the photo above and the few on my Flick Feed it looks fairly “normal” which is kind of nice as it will have a broad appeal. Now the kicker in all of this is the price… Nissan states that it is only going to cost about the same as a regular compact vehicle. My complaint with hybrid vehicles has always been that they are too expensive for young people (the people who actually care about the environment) to buy them. Well not anymore.
Nissan of course is still working on their wireless charging stations so that eventually you wont have to plug your car in, but drive over a panel that will charge the car instead. And down the road we may even see special highway lanes that will charge your Nissan Leaf as you drive!
This is a step in the right direction and it will be interesting to see how many of these cars are purchased If you want to keep tabs on the Nissan Leaf or ask any questions about the technology you can follow the vehicle @NissanEVs on Twitter. Nissan has yet to release info on how it can get a car to tweet.
Cheers!
jordenf
If you enjoyed this post you may also like the articles I have written on Electric Car Chargers, Solar Forests, or E-Bikes. You can also find any other eco-related posts by clicking the link or by searching the categories on the right side of my page.
Filed under: eco, vehicles | Tagged: eco, electric, environment, ev, leaf, nissan, nissan zev, plug-in electric, zero emission vehicle, zev
