Nissan Leaf makes "World Car of the Year"

I'm still not sold on the Leaf. The range is low and the front end looks like a frog/tadpole. If they cleaned up the design and improved the range, then I'd be all over one.

 

I have noticed that the Volt mostly garners American rewards, while the LEAF accolades are international.

Who wudda thunk ?

 

I've seen two Leafs now in Carlsbad, CA, where I work. Regardless of what you think of the looks of it in photos, it looks Awesome when you see it in person, driving on the road. Absolutely awesome looking.

From the photos, I thought it looked kind of nerdy/odd/"funky" looking, but when I saw it in person both times, it looked great in person.

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So the Leaf is not photogenic.

 

I was talking about total mileage. The Leaf is only 100 miles, while the Volt is 35 on electric and up to an additional 340 miles on gas.

A hundred years ago electric vehicles were getting 100 miles per charge, yes granted their mph was a lot lower. Here we are in the 21st Century and an affordable electric vehicle still can't get beyond 100 miles per charge. The battery technology is there, just look at the Tesla Roadster which gets 240 miles per charge and the soon to be released Tesla Model S with up to 300 miles per charge. Even the lowest configured Model S will get 160 miles per charge. Yes I know those cars are much more expensive, but that is partly because they are a new company and don't mass produce the quantity of vehicles like the larger auto manufactures do.

Oh and I've seen the Leaf up close......it's still ugly.

 

Comparing the leaf to a tesla is like comparing a piper cub to an f-16.

 

well tesla also uses laptop cells to reduce the price....

anything can be done, at a price, question is - who will buy it then?

 

I believe the Tesla Roadster battery weighs something like 1,000 lbs. And how much do you think it costs to replace??

I'll bet it would be about, roughly $20,000

I would think the electric cars 100 years ago could barely get out of their own way.

There is at least one big, fat, major issue to 'improve' with EV traction batteries ..........

cost

Nissan Leaf is priced well over $40k in Japan, and other countries, US equiv. $. They lowered the price here because they want it to take off the most here to start with.

 

100 years ago, you only got those 100 miles when going at a top speed of 10 MPH and those cars were a lot more expensive than a typical vehicle.

Comparatively, today the Nissan LEAF will go 140 miles at an optimal speed of 38 MPH and is priced very close to the average vehicle sell price ($28,500 in 2009).

The issue is that development was stopped for 80 of those 100 years and vehicle manufacturers weren't interested in getting into the battery business for a long time. That's changed too with the most recently (and upcoming) electric vehicles.

 

I have been reading that the real world miles are much lower than the rated 100 miles. Not sure if this is due to driver error or because Nissan over inflated their numbers. Either way, the vehicle still is one ugly looking machine.

 

I've been right about 100-105 miles per pack charge, well over the 73 mile EPA rating.

#1 comment so far: "That's a great looking car." Ironically, most of those have been from drivers in SUVs!

 

The official EPA figure for the Leaf is 73 miles.

 

Like said above, 73 miles is EPA range rating. Plus, Nissan does not recommend 100% of battery repeatedly. I believe most are doing 80% charges.

 

If you're in Japan, you can rent a Leaf and drive it on real roads in Okinawa now. We were there earlier in the month and I saw one at the Nissan rental place. It sounds like its about 8000 yen a day. For some perspective, we'd prebooked another car, and got a Cube for 3500 yen a day. It was only six months old.

There are several charging stations at various sites on the main Okinawa island, which isn't all that big anyway. One is right at the top near Okuma beach.