Nissan promotes solar energy with new 2018 Leaf

Electric vehicles and home solar energy go hand in hand. It enables electric vehicle owners to drive on sunshine and mitigate any increase in electricity consumption due to their new vehicle.

In the past, Nissan has often partnered with solar installers to promote solar energy with new electric vehicle purchases and now they started doing it again in Japan with the new 2018 Leaf.

The Japanese automaker announced yesterday:

“Owners of the new Nissan LEAF in Japan can receive free installation of solar panels for their homes if they sign up for an electricity retail plan offered by Ecosystem Japan. The offer is part of a joint campaign by Nissan Motor Co., Ltd. and Ecosystem Japan. It aims to promote the use of clean energy to power the 100% electric Nissan LEAF.

New LEAF owners who sign up for Ecosystem’s Jibun Denryoku (“personal electricity”) plan qualify for free installation of a solar power generation system. They can also get a discount on a plan called the Daytime Assist Plan. Participants are encouraged to charge their LEAFs during the day using electricity from their solar panels, or at night when demand for grid power is lower.”

Ecosystem Japan is a solar panel installer in Japan.

Now, the “free installation of solar panels” is not as simple as that. The footnote says that New Leaf owners need to sign up for a 20-year power purchase agreement and after the contract is ended, the ownership of the system is transferred to the Leaf owner for free.

Last month, Nissan announced that early demand in Europe and Japan for the new Leaf was strong –  they said that they received over 9,000 orders for the new Leaf in less than 2 months in those two markets. The automaker added that they received 10,000 orders in Europe alone as of earlier this month.

Electrek’s Take

Studies showed that electric vehicle owners are more likely to be interested in residential solar, which opens up opportunities for electric car makers to do more of those kinds of partnerships.

Tesla is starting to take advantage of this by including its solar products in its showrooms and it even talked about potentially offering a full package of energy generation with its solar panels, energy storage with the Powerwall, and energy consumption with its electric vehicles.

Solar and energy storage prices are highly dependent on your market (electricity cost, gov incentives, etc.) and your property. We suggest getting quotes from more than one installer to make sure you get the best energy solution for your place. UnderstandSolar is a great free service to link you to top-rated solar installers in your region for personalized solar estimates for free.