Thursday, August 15, 2013

Nissan Touts Success of All-Electric Leaf






Representatives from Nissan recently visited Atlanta to share updates on the automaker’s Leaf all-electric vehicle, including the fact that the company has sold its 100,000th Leaf to a metro Atlanta woman.
The Leaf has been on the market since late 2010, and has posted steadily rising sales since, Nissan officials said.
"We expect demand to keep growing as the charging infrastructure develops – and we remain 100 percent committed to zero-emission technology for the long term," Renault-Nissan Alliance Chairman and CEO Carlos Ghosn said in a news release. Renault-Nissan has sold more zero-emission vehicles than all other major automakers combined.
The buyer of the 100,000th Leaf was identified by Nissan as Allison Howard, a graduate student at Kennesaw State University. "It just drives perfectly," Howard said in a news release. "It's so cool. I love it. The fact that it's all electric and I don't have to spend money on gas as a college student, that's great."
Nissan officials said that Atlanta is one of the Leaf’s top U.S. markets, along with cities such as San Francisco, Seattle and Honolulu. Buyers in Georgia receive tax credits that substantially lower the cost of the vehicle, as well as the ability to use High Occupancy Vehicle lanes in the metro area’s crowded roads, even when the driver is alone.
The Leaf is a plug-in car that gets its charge from charging stations or wall outlets. It stores energy in a lithium-ion battery, and can be "topped off" at any charge point. They can also be fully recharged overnight at the Leaf owner’s home, garage or in a parking deck.
Nissan officials said the automaker is working with government authorities, utility companies and others to expand charging stations that would let drivers recharge their cars from zero to 80 percent capacity in less than 30 minutes.
Nissan offers a smart phone app that allows users to see where the nearest charging stations are.
The company says Leaf has 75-80 miles of range from a four-hour charge at 240 volts.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

This statement is comical: "zero-emission technology"...errr, uhhh, where did the electricity come from that the engine consumes to function? The emissions are just produced BEFORE the car uses the energy instead of during the energy use. Now, what would be interesting to know and compare is the emissions produced through electricity creation and distribution (yes, manufacturing, deploying, and maintaining towers, steel cable, sub-stations, transformers, etc creates emissions) as compared to petroleum extraction, transport, refinement, and use.