Wednesday August 05, 2009

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

channelnewsasia.com :

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.

See also :

1. Nissan, NEC to mass produce lithium-ion batteries for cars
2. Toyota to launch pure electric car based on FT-EV concept in US by 2012
3. Mazda to offer hybrid and electric cars by 2015
4. 2010 Mitsubishi i-MiEV electric car to be more affordable, plug-in hybrid planned
5. Nissan snubs hybrids, to build over 100000 electric cars per year from 2012

(2009-08-05 19:24:25 SGT) [Energy] Permalink

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