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This is the Nissan Leaf, Nissan’s brand new global, mass-market electric vehicle.

The Leaf will go on sale in the US and Japan next year, and in Europe by 2012. It has an electric motor with 108bhp and 208lb ft of torque, a 100-mile operating range, and will be priced to compete with well-equipped C-segment saloons, at around £20,000.

The Leaf is based on an entirely new platform designed to accommodate newly developed batteries as and when they come on stream. Positioned undernea...Read the full article

Wow - and to think that many people say the Prius looks odd, this is ugly. Not convinced about the running costs. I, like most people, had hoped that the option of buying an electric car would prove to be a way of genuinely cutting motoring costs and getting away from the extortion of the oil companies who seem to keep prices high even when the cost of crude drops dramatically. This would seem to knock that idea on the head. £20,000 to buy the car seems OK for a well buiult and equiped car of this size, but add in £100 or even £75 a month to lease the battery pack certainly pushes it back up to paying nearly the same as any other car. Also, I thought Renault's idea of battery exchange stations was damn good and sensible, strange that Nissan are now saying they don't think that that is viable in Europe, why not? If two halves of the same company can't agree on the way forward, what hope is there for getting a common decent infrastructure in place.

that is uglier than the micra which i hadnt thought possible. AVOID

 £1000 a year for the batteries? they have the cheek to ask £19k for a car basically without an engine in it.

their logic doesnt work out, if the pack costs £5k then after 5 years of £1k a year the balance is equal, but these packs should last 10 years, so its half the price if you buy them rather than rent them. but they are not giving the public the choice?

there could be potential drawbacks to ownership with this scheme, what if in 2 years time nissan say "sorry we now have to charge £3k a year for the battery packs due to 'exchange rates' 'production issues' etc." the only way owners will be able to drive is if they pay out the extra money.

anyway its all by the by, electric cars are only for the well off.

battery cars are deader than a dead duracell dated 1984.

 

 

 

 

 

I really like it and battery cars are not DEAD....they are just starting life!.....the battery range will increase and you will stop having to lease batteries.

But this is the first of a tide of electric cars.....as I have been saying for ages, Prius is DEAD as is the Honda Insight.....sure you will get hybrids on bigger cars, but all the smaller cars will either be electric or Chevy Volt system.

Look at the new Tesla family car...300 miles is it....all electric wiht no battery leasing.....the clever Tesla Motors are leaps ahead of the Japanese....I love America.

And to think all those on here slagging off the US....sham on you...they have the best electric cars and the best hybrids i.e. the Chevy Volt.....and at MIT they have all the best battery technology.....all of which is coming out into the market place soon.

You see instead of maoning liek some people on hear, the Americas where developing and perfecting; now they hold all the aces.....shows its better to go build the dream rather than (like some that use this site) moan about it and or stick your head in the sand.....

Chevy Volt (as I have been banging on for ages).....as Tesla all electric is the tech. to follow for the majority of the market...Prius and Insight.....DEAD (stone cold)...Ford Escape type models use hybrid type system sure...but that will change once battery life is increased and or the Chevy Volt type unit is expected for 4x4 motors (which I expect in the next five to seven years)......

Unlucky Toyota and unlucky Honda!...well done Tesla, Nissan, GM (Chevy), Ford, Mitsi...etc.....

beachland2:

they have the cheek to ask £19k for a car basically without an engine in it.

Not quite, the car has the engine fitted, it's just the "tank" that's empty - like your normal dealer selling a new car but not putting any petrol in it.

beachland2:

what if in 2 years time nissan say "sorry we now have to charge £3k a year for the battery packs due to 'exchange rates' 'production issues' etc." the only way owners will be able to drive is if they pay out the extra money.

I am guessing that any sensible buyer would only buy the car if the lease costs were fixed at the start of the term. Maybe it could vary if you had to swap the battery pack over or something like that.

ordinary bloke:

Not quite, the car has the engine fitted, it's just the "tank" that's empty - like your normal dealer selling a new car but not putting any petrol in it.

 

more like selling it without that tank not an empty tank, the car is useless without a tank (battery pack) even if you can get petrol (electricity).

so my analagoy of engine is more correct.

 

 

Looks sort of like a Renault Megane II, weird that Nissan kind of picked up on that styling. The boot seems just as unpractical as on the Megane. Why should the car, without the batterypack, cost 19000? That seems a bit high, since they want to compete with a Golf or so.

Can any one explain why someone would want this over a regular diesel hatch, like a 115bhp focus or similar Mazda/astra/auris/megane etc? A £100 a month battery rental + some electricity costs is more running costs than my dad's 407 diesel. And he paid a lot less than £19k for it! And gets a much further range too! The sums don't add up on this Nissan. Unless you absolutely MUST have silent running. Very cunning by Nissan though- in one quick move your monthly petrol expenses will end up mostly in nissans pocket for battery rental - a nice little business model. I wonder did they copy it from inkjet printers or from razor blades? :-)

For my company it is good as we are have an integrated transport policy i.e. only those that need a car get one and you should only use the car to get to place where you cannot get to easily by train and or bus...therefore....say you have a meeting in London....then you would go by train but might use a regular type car to get to the nearest station.

With this type electric car, it serves as an excellent pool car i.e. if you have to nip into town to pick something up or if you have an appointment within the same area etc.....if someone has to pick someone up from the train station etc.....otherwise the pool cars would be petrol or diesel.

But with this car you get 100 miles so you can make several short trips without recharging and or you can make a trip of up to 160 miles (based on the 80% charge up and depending on who you see i.e. if you go to a supplier that has an industrial supply you can use)......and 160 miles is quite a long distance......

and unlike the Prius you burn no fuel petrol/diesel......then when the Chevy Volt comes out you can replace the entire normal fleet (as it were) with Chevy Volts.....thus as a business you are pretty dam clean and covered...you can use the Renualt vans for commercial aspects......in this way you start building these solutions in early and progress in the right way....

....for cost, the cost is fixed....i.e. you know exactly how much each month you are spending i.e. for industry, we do deals with power companies and thus get cheaper than domestic supply and the car is just £100 per month....cheaper than any petrol or diesel..then you do not need to buy it oil, or spark plugs etc and then you do not need to tax it etc.....it will be cheap insurance (I am sure).....and its genuinely green...its all good!

Why do they have to make eletric cars so ugly?

 2 things, 1st electricity doesnt have a fixed price, it mostly goes up in price.

secondly it wont be long before electric cars will have just as high road tax as current average polluting fossil fuel cars.

The UK is highly financed  by road users, when the average car is electric only, an electric only car will cost the same to own and run as a 1.6/2.0 petrol mondeo does now.

its inevitable,