Nissan Unveils Production “Leaf” BEV
A couple weeks ago, Nissan threw a big party at the Oregon Museum of Science & Industry to unveil their new Battery Electric Vehicle (BEV), to be called the “Leaf” when it hits the market in the fall of 2010. It was no accident that this event was held here in Portland, as our city will be among the first to get the Leaf, well before everyone else. Seattle, Sonoma, San Diego, Tucson, Phoenix, Raleigh-Durham, Washington D.C., and Vancouver B.C. are also scheduled to get the Leaf this year.
If that sounds like a strange list of communities for a new vehicle rollout, it is. The cities were selected primarily for their health “green market” potential and the willingness of local and state governments and utilities to participate in creating the infrastructure that BEVs need to be convenient and reliable. In our case, PGE has been involved in the process from the beginning.
The infrastructure requirements are simple, but substantial. BEVs need access to charging stations just as petroleum-powered vehicles need access to fuel stations. With help from President Obama’s economic stimulus funds, PGE is building charging stations throughout the metro area and even down to Salem.
The Leaf is expected to travel about 100-120 miles on a charge, so charge-up will likely be a daily or every-other-day occurrence, and the charging process still takes up to 8 hours on a 220VAC circuit. However, Nissan has developed a “Quick-Charger” that can get the Leaf up to 80% charged in just 30 minutes. That’s not gas-station quick, but it’s perfect for a workday or overnight.
PGE knows a good deal when they see it, and their involvement in BEV infrastructure development is enlightened self-interest. Not only is stimulus money paying for the development, but PGE stands to sell all the electricity used by the Leaf and other BEVs. Even the public charging stations currently in operation downtown at the World Trade Center, and all the others that will be built, will be “behind a meter” – meaning that someone will have to pay PGE for the electricity. There’s no free lunch for electric vehicle owners unless some business or other entity decides to pick up the tab.
Physically, the Leaf looks a lot like the Nissan Versa – it’s a five-door hatchback with the electric motor in front, driving the front wheels. But the vehicle chassis design is completely new. The batteries are located low under the passenger compartment to keep the weight in the optimal location and provide the best possible passenger and cargo layout. The plug-in is located at the front, under a little trapdoor with the Leaf logo.
The car is comfortable, bigger on the inside than you’d expect from looking at the outside, and the trunk area is cavernous. Like all modern eco-mobiles, the dash is equal parts driving information and video game.
In designing the Leaf, Nissan went beyond just designing a BEV. They also embraced the notion of using recycled materials wherever possible. Thus the Leaf uses a great deal of recycled plastic milk and water bottles and materials from recycled home appliances in its interior. Leaf vehicles for the North American market will be built at Nissan’s plant in Smyrna, Tennessee, saving trans-oceanic shipping energy.
The Leaf is expected to be priced in the high $20,000s, and it’s not yet clear what the dealer situation will be. The first Leafs could command a tall dealer markup if Nissan doesn’t control the pricing. However, if you’re interested in being the first on your block to own a Leaf, it’s probably a good idea to contact your Nissan dealer as soon as possible.
If you can wait a while, Nissan has a long-term commitment to the Leaf and to a whole lineup of BEVs. Plans are already in the works for a commercial delivery vehicle and for a premium BEV under Nissan’s Infiniti badge.
With the Leaf, Nissan has beaten every major automaker except MINI to the mass-market BEV punch. But unlike the MINI Cooper E (available only in Los Angeles and New York), the Leaf is affordable, and it’s coming out nationwide in partnership with the utilities that will supply the juice. That’s smart business, and Nissan is likely to reap the rewards.
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Volt who?
(Please re-post this as a community service)
Less than 20 car companies (The ATVM people say there were tons of applications but only a handful were car companies) applied for $25 BILLION DOLLARS in taxpayer money managed by a certain smug group of people at DOE in order to get loans to make green cars for Americans. This was not all of DOE that did bad things, just a private cadre of men.
There was enough money to help every single one of the car companies that applied. The administrators applied their interpretations of the law in order to benefit the large lobby group-related firms and avoided every one of the “politically unconnected “independent American companies.
The amount of lobby and influence money spent by each awardee is in direct ratio to the amount of money awarded. Pay-to-play was the process.
The smaller companies, due to lower overhead, could have dramatically more productive results with the money than the large burdened companies yet the money was given out based on political career advantages for the administrators rather than the technology advantages for Americans.
The way the ATVM people set it up (Google “Siry says stifles innovation” for more), the smaller applicants were prevented from getting outside investor funding.
All of the people that reviewed the applications had political and financial connections to GM, Ford, Chrysler and the large Detroit recipients.
Each of those smaller American companies had technology and resources that presented a powerful economic threat, if they got the loans, to the large politically connected companies that did receive funds. The big car companies wanted the small companies cut-out at all costs.
The Section 136 law was written to provide first-come-first serve funding but when the small companies got their applications in first, while the big ones arrogantly felt that they did not even need to apply because it was already pre-staged for them, the ATVM officials changed the rules in order to remove the first-come-first-serve standard of the law in order to cut out the smaller independents.
Some of the companies that have gotten money have backed out of making the electric cars they said they would make. But they still get to keep the money.
The Section 136 Law was created by the lobbyists for GM, Ford & Chrysler when they saw that they were about to go bankrupt and wanted to tap into additional taxpayer dollars by claiming the money was going to be used for electric cars in order to win rapid support for Section 136 by tugging at heartstrings. In retrospect, the money mostly went to gasoline car projects. Multiple public hearings have already shown the sister loan guarantee program to have been a failed program via intentional delays, the head was fired and replaced & massive complaints have been filed by many.
Some of the companies that got the money have already wasted more money than other companies applied for as their total request.
Some of the companies that got taxpayer loan money are not even American companies and/or are doing their manufacturing offshore with non-American employees. Thus, the ATVM process has cost American’s jobs.
Those who got the money had to fill out little, or no, paperwork, went through little, or no, review and were connected to the DOE people who gave them the money and shepherded them through the process. Those who they wanted to keep out were forced to jump through more hoops, were slow-tracked in review and had made no political deals via hired law and lobby firms that the big companies has used to conduit “influence”.
The decision about who would get money was made in 2008 by a private group who then pretended there was a lengthy review throughout 2009 but in fact, the money was pre-wired for a select few.
All of the things that the rejected small companies (who did not pay lobby fees) were rejected for, were the same things that the insider big companies were doing. In at least two cases, big companies who were in violation of Section 136 rules were guided by reviewer-insiders to change their whole business structure in order to become suddenly “compliant “with section 136 while smaller companies received no such “help”.
It's actually Smyrna Tennessee, not Georgia - editor get your facts right!!!
Thanks to Jason for the correction. It's back to geography class for me...
Dana, your remarks are completely off topic and have been posted verbatim on dozens of other irrelevant articles. You clearly have your own agenda. But in response, it takes alot longer to prove that a small startup with no financial history and a questionable business model will be able to pay the money back (fiscal responsibility). On the other hand, despite their recent troubles, the big 3 have historically been among the most successful enterprises in history. For the big 3, when times are good, they are really good, when times are bad, they are really bad. And when they are really really bad, they go bankrupt. This is a phenomenon known as operating leverage, and is nothing new. It all needs to be taken into account when anyone loans anyone money, and can take time, especially when taxpayers demand fiscal responsibility. You obviously do not know what you are talking about.