2010 Nissan Leaf electric car specifications : 107hp, 24KWh lithium-ion batteries, 100-mile range

Nissan has unveiled its first electric car, the 2010 Nissan Leaf. The mid-sized hatchback, which goes on sale late-2010, represents a bold bet by Nissan that hybrids are merely a passing fad on the road to pure electric vehicles. The Nissan Leaf can travel more than 160 km on a single charge, at a top speed of 140 km/h. Nissan plans to sell it at a similar price to comparable conventional models, and lease the battery to customers. Nissan was slower than Toyota and Honda to embrace hybrid cars, but it is determined to steal a march on its larger competitors in zero-emission cars. The stakes are high for 44% Renault-owned Nissan which lost about $2.5 billion in the year to March and is slashing 20,000 jobs. But the 2010 Nissan Leaf will not be the first electric car on the market, being preceded by the Mitsubishi i-MiEV minicar and the Subaru Plug-in STELLA.

greencarcongress.com :

The 2010/2011 Nissan Leaf is a medium-size hatchback that seats 4 adults and has a range of more than 160km (100 miles) on a full charge, based on an urban driving cycle (US LA4). A 24 kWh pack of laminated lithium-ion batteries from Nissan JV AESC delivers output of more than 90kW to power a synchronous AC motor delivering 80 kW (107 hp) of power and torque of 280 Nm (207 lb-ft). Top speed is 140 km/h (90 mph). The Nissan Leaf can be charged up to 80% of its full capacity in just under 30 minutes with a quick charger. Charging at home through a 200V outlet is estimated to take approximately 8 hours.

- Great move by Nissan towards the electric future, though I may not agree much with their anti-hybrid philosophy being late as they are to the future-car party, well over a decade following the trail first blazed by the original models of the Honda Insight and Toyota Prius. I have a bit of doubt on their market timing, battery-leasing model, and the current state of the art of lithium-ion battery technology but all-in-all, it does like a pretty decent effort on Nissan's part.

Looks-wise, it somewhat resembles a hatchback version of their own Nissan Latio model, fairly conventional looking, which is to say it looks just right for the family role. It's not exactly a Tesla Roadster or a Tesla Model S but I'd say it's a sound strategy to target the everyday family car segment. The dashboard takes a *leaf* (pun intended) from the Honda Civic Hybrid and Insight with its high-tech, Star Trek-style, two-tier instrument cluster design, topped by a digital speedometer. Being the owner of a 2008 Honda Civic Hybrid myself, I would feel right at home with this type of dashboard design, which seems to be the new fashionable style going forward. Good-bye to analog meters and all that.

Now all you need to do is to wait for the necessary charging infrastructure to catch up, and you just might see these electric cars coming soon to a road near you.

Seagate Technology to cut 2000 jobs in Singapore in mass layoff

channelnewsasia.com :

Seagate Technology announced on Tuesday [4 Aug 2009] it would relocate its hard disk drive manufacturing operations from Ang Mo Kio to other existing Seagate facilities by end-2010, laying off some 2,000 employees in the process. The company said in a statement that this consolidation is necessary in order for it to further increase efficiency and reduce costs by leveraging investments across fewer manufacturing sites. Seagate has two other facilities in Singapore, located at Science Park and Woodlands. Employees ending their employment with Seagate will be offered severance benefits, in keeping with company policy.

- Seagate is no stranger to mass layoffs, but still, this is a pretty big number for a pretty small country like Singapore. Like I said earlier to anyone who would listen, Q3 2009 isn't going to be too good on the jobs front. Help is at hand though. The Singapore jobs market (and elsewhere) could start improving toward the end of the year, perhaps from Q4 2009 onward. Next year is of course going to be a completely different matter, but as a variation on the green shoots theory for 2009, we'll see how far that goes.

(2009-08-05 05:47:27 SGT) [Biz] Permalink

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