Compare the Market, a UK-based car insurance comparison website, looked up the price of a Nissan Leaf in 49 countries. It pulled the offered price right from the official Nissan website of the latest model in February 2020. The lowest price was $28,620 in Spain. The steepest Leaf price was in Singapore at $110,326.
Under new leadership, Nissan wants to reclaim its leadership in electric vehicles. But it’s going to downplay affordable electric cars like the Leaf hatchback. Instead, newly minted CEO Makoto Uchida wants Nissan EVs to have robust features, long range, and higher prices that would bring higher profits. The new strategy will start with a new pure-electric crossover SUV, based on the Ariya concept, that would sell in Europe for the equivalent of between $55,000 and $78,000.
While EV enthusiasts are waiting for Nissan to announce its next generation LEAF, or whatever they will call their upcoming new electric vehicle with a 60 kWh battery pack, it looks like the Japanese automaker is now taking a huge and confusing step backward in electrification by introducing a gas-powered range extender called ‘E-Power’ without a plug?!
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Nissan was the first to introduce an upgraded battery pack to one of the mainstream electric cars, the LEAF’s new 30 kWh pack, and was only recently followed by BMW with the i3’s new pack and soon the VW e-Golf with its 2017 battery pack.
We were expecting that the new 30 kWh pack, which brings the LEAF’s range to 107 EPA-rated miles, would help erase its poor sales performance in the US in 2015 with 17,269 units versus 30,200 in 2014, but as it turns out, Nissan’s LEAF sales are still in free-fall in the US and the Tesla Model 3 could have something to do with it.
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Today, Nissan announced a deal to provide 110 Nissan LEAFs with the new 30 kWh battery pack to La Ciudad del Taxi, a Madrid-based taxi company. The automaker is calling the transaction “the world’s largest 100 percent electric taxi fleet deal”.
The new 30 kWh battery pack option for the 2016 models gets 107 EPA-rated miles on a single charge.
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Tesla has mostly welcomed electric vehicle competition since it contributes to its mission to accelerate the advent of electric transport, though it didn’t stop CEO Elon Musk to literally laugh at competition on occasions. Nissan is another automaker with a strong commitment to EVs and it has a similar approach to competition in the market.
CEO Carlos Ghosn commented on Tesla having received an impressive number of Model 3 reservations since unveiling the all-electric $35,000 sedan last week and he referred to the vehicle as “good competition.”.
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Nissan released today its January sales report for the U.S. and revealed that LEAF sales are down 29.4% versus the same period last year. Until late in 2015, the company had the excuse of the upcoming 2016 models, which were affecting sales negatively as potential buyers were waiting for the upgrade, but the new cars arrived at dealerships and December was still a very disappointing month for Nissan’s all-electric vehicle.
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Nissan announced today that it is expanding its “No Charge to Charge” program to 3 more markets: New York, Philadelphia and Santa Barbara.
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Nissan released its December and 2015 sales reports for the U.S. and LEAF sales are down 42.8% in 2015 versus 2014. Until December, the company had the excuse of the upcoming 2016 models, which were affecting sales negatively, but the new cars arrived at dealerships last month and December was still a very disappointing month for Nissan’s all-electric vehicle.
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BMW and Nissan jointly announced today an important partnership to deploy DC fast charging stations at 120 locations across 19 states. The locations are equipped with Greenlots-networked charging stations, which include both CHAdeMO and CCS (Combo) connectors, suitable for all DC Fast charging-capable electric vehicles in the U.S.
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Nissan announced a partnership with Enel, Europe’s second largest power company for installed capacity, to develop a new “Vehicle-to-Grid” initiative to use, store and return to the grid electricity in excess from Nissan’s electric vehicles.
The initiative appears to be a revival of Nissan’s “LEAF to Home” program, which appears to have been abandoned years ago. Although the new program seems to be more focused on providing a service to the grid rather than backup power, which was the focus of “LEAF to Home”.
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Nissan announced that it will unveil the “Fuel Station of the Future” in partnership with Foster + Partners, a British architecture and design firm. Interestingly, Nissan features the all-electric LEAF in a short preview video for the station.
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Sky News staged a race between Nissan’s battery-powered LEAF and Hyundai’s hydrogen fuel cell ix35 SUV. The race started at Sky’s studios in London and the finish line was in Paris for the COP21 Conference. Spoiler alert: the ix35 won.
The 270-mile journey was well within the 369-mile range of the ix35, but with the LEAF’s 84-mile range, it needed to stop to charge its 24 kWh battery pack.
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Today Nissan released its October US sales report, which confirmed lagging LEAF sales, now down 52% over October 2014. Nissan delivered 1,238 LEAFs in the US in October versus 2,589 during the same period last year.
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Nissan expands its “free” charging program for the LEAF called “No Charge to Charge” to 3 more US cities: Austin, Texas; Monterey, Calif. and Raleigh-Durham, N.C. New LEAF buyers will have access to some chargers in EZ-Charge’s network for 2 years. The first 30 minutes of each DC charging session and 60 minutes of each level 2 charging session will be free.
IF LEAF owners want to hug the charging stalls for longer periods they will have to pay EZ-Charge, but considering the LEAF’s battery pack size, it isn’t likely to be necessary.
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Last month we reported that Nissan’s LEAF US sales were down 56% in August. Today the Japan-based automaker released its September US sales report and sales are still down 56% from September last year.
The company delivered 1,247 LEAFs last month versus 2,881 during the same period last year.
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Nissan confirmed through a press release this morning the details of the 2016 version of its flagship electric vehicle: the LEAF. Information leaked through a dealership earlier this year already disclosed that the LEAF 2016 will have a 30 kWh battery pack option, but today Nissan confirmed the information and expects the pack to allow for an EPA-rated range of 107 miles.
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Nissan has been careful not to release too much information about the 2016 update of its flagship electric vehicle, the LEAF, most probably not to hurt the sales of its current model. Though we learned through information leaked from dealerships that Nissan should offer a bigger battery pack option for more range in the 2016 version. The new model is expected to arrive at the end of month like most 2016 cars, but we have yet to get an official launch date or see one in the flesh, until now…
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A spectacular short video posted to Youtube earlier this week shows a Nissan LEAF on fire. According to a post on the My Nissan Leaf forum, the event happened on September 1st in North Texas.
This is quite possibly to first reported instance of a Nissan LEAF catching fire even though Nissan sold over 180,000 LEAFs to date worldwide.
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Electric vehicles are here to stay, there’s very little doubt about that at this point, but which automakers are making sure that EVs are not a fad, but a trend? A new report from EV-Sales, a website tracking electric vehicle sales through car registration data, compiled the top automotive groups selling EVs in volume.
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Not only is the car redesigned but claimed to get more than double the current 85Mile range. The design is definitely more pleasing though I have to wonder what that huge front grill is all about.
Nissan is hard at work developing the next-generation Leaf, focusing on improving the range with new battery tech and – as our exclusive images show – a more conventional look. The new car is expected to be on sale late in 2016, with prices starting around £17,000…Nissan bosses are promising new battery technology is on the way, with better energy density for a more usable pure electric vehicle. A figure of about 186 miles is likely to be the target.
Nissan Motor and Mitsubishi Motors will work together to develop a minicar-based electric vehicle, aiming to release a new model in fiscal 2016 at the lowest price among major automakers. The carmakers have set up a 50-50 joint venture to pursue development. Nissan, which released the Leaf electric car in 2010, is the world’s largest manufacturer of electric vehicles, with global sales of at least 124,000 units. Mitsubishi has a track record in this area as well, including the minicar-based i-MiEV released in 2009. They plan to co-produce the new car and work together to procure such key components as lithium-ion batteries. The i-MiEV is the cheapest electric passenger car on the Japanese market, starting at 2.52 million yen ($24,300). When government subsidies of up to 740,000 yen are included, it can be purchased for as little as 1.78 million yen.
This will be interesting if they can build a car as good as a Leaf for as little or less than a i-MiEV. If they can do this, the math is almost unstoppable especially a gas prices rise.
After Tesla lost in New Jersey, Nissan’s social Media Team Tweeted the “dickish” image above from the Leaf account according to ABGreen. They quickly realized the folly of their ways and deleted it and perhaps someone was straighend out (the door?) over the matter.
I mean we’re all in this together and rising waters raise all ships and all that, right?
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