2010 Nissan LEAF EV: Coming to a Freeway Near You

Nissan (NSANY) will be the first to have thousands of affordable freeway-speed electric vehicles on the highways. The new 2010 Nissan LEAF is a comfortable compact hatchback that seats five.

Although Tesla will be the first to have a thousand freeway-speed EV on the roads, the $100,000 price tag is out of reach for most of us. According to Nissan, the LEAF will be “competitively priced in the range of a well-equipped C-segment vehicle.” In late 2010, Nissan will finalize pricing and its sale and/or lease strategy. We expect the LEAF to start around $30,000. Buyers are likely to qualify for a $7,500 federal tax credit.

The Nissan LEAF will build on Nissan’s hybrid-electric success with the Altima Hybrid, which is in currently in the #6 position for U.S. cars with the lowest greenhouse gas emissions. The Nissan Altima Hybrid starts at $26,500.

Clean Fleet Report’s test drives of the Nissan EV demonstrated plenty of acceleration. The Nissan LEAF is powered by 24kWh of laminated compact lithium-ion batteries, which generate 90 kW of power, while its electric motor delivers 80kW/280Nm.

The LEAF has a range of about 100 miles. In 8 hours you are good for another 100 miles with a Level 2 AC200V home-use charger; in 26 minutes you can be 80 percent charged with a Level 3 DC 50kW quick charger. The 440v Level 3 chargers are likely to be scary, expensive, and certainly not for home use.

Nissan did not announce that LEAF batteries can be quickly swapped, but Nissan continues to partner with Better Place.

Many drivers will only spend $20 to $40 per month for electricity – a fraction of what they now spend for gas at the pump. Early adopters of electric vehicles, especially fleets, often use their solar power to charge vehicles.

In 2010, the Nissan will first be available in CA, OR, WA, AZ, TN, and NC.

Nissan is working with a number of global partners to accelerate development of a charging infrastructure, early fleet use, and education. For example, when I recently spoke at a San Diego cleantech event (presentation videos) San Diego Gas and Electric [SRE] announced early roll-out of 1,000 Nissan LEAF and an extensive charging infrastructure. Clean Fleet Report predicts that Nissan will be the first to have 10,000 freeway-speed electric vehicles on the road.

Toyota, Chevrolet, Chrysler and others will compete with Nissan by offering plug-in hybrids which will go up to 40 miles in battery electric mode and then engage gasoline engines to provide hundreds of miles of added range until the next gasoline fill-up or electric charge.

Nissan, however, is focused on zero-emission leadership. Longer term, Nissan expects to see many urban centers, such as London, where only ZEV will be exempt from expensive daily congestion fees. The 100-mile range meets the needs of 90 percent of U.S. daily driving and meets the needs of households with two or more cars.

Nissan will also face battery-electric competition next year from Ford (F), Chrysler, Mercedes (DAI) Smart, and dozens of emerging innovators. Electric vehicles are not new to the United States. 40,000 now drive light electric-vehicles on corporate and college campuses, typically with 25 mph speeds and 25 mile ranges.

Nissan LEAF employs an exclusive advanced IT system. Connected to a global data center, the system can provide support, information, and entertainment for drivers 24 hours a day. The dash-mounted monitor displays Nissan LEAF’s remaining power – or “reachable area” – in addition to showing a selection of nearby charging stations. Another state-of-the-art feature is the ability to use mobile phones to turn on air-conditioning and set charging functions – even when Nissan LEAF is powered down. An on-board remote-controlled timer can also be pre-programmed to recharge batteries.

The LEAF has a distinctive aerodynamic design. The “blue earth” color theme of the Aqua Globe body color of Nissan LEAF’s introductory model compliments the blue dashboard and instrumentation.

The first of Nissan’s EV’s will be manufactured at Oppama, Japan, with additional capacity planned for Smyrna, Tennessee, USA. Meanwhile, lithium-ion batteries are being produced in Zama, Japan, by the Nissan-NEC JV with additional capacity planned for the USA, the UK and Portugal, and other locations.

Nissan’s leadership will accelerate the manufacturing of fully-functional electric vehicles in volume. Manufacturing volume will drive down cost, making zero-emission vehicles cost competitive with gasoline counterparts. Electric vehicles will likely be less expensive for people to drive with low-cost nighttime charging. It will be easy for people to save on emissions when they are saving money at the same time.

Disclosure: No position

Comments

[John Petersen:]

With a 24 kWh battery pack there is little or no chance that the Leaf will have a $30,000 sticker price. An article from Jack Lifton yesterday said Nissan would be selling the Leaf without batteries for $15,000 and setting up a separate lease agreement for the battery pack. My bet is the lease costs on the battery pack will far exceed the average driver's monthly expenditures for gasoline. The Leaf may be fine for green status seekers and California air quality regulators, but the solution will be far beyond the economic reach of normal working people.

Aug 05 03:31 AM

[Davewmart:]

John Addison,
Thanks for a fine article.
Here is Ghosn on their price plans:
'Nissan plans to sell the car at a similar price to a comparable model with a petrol-powered engine. The battery, which will be stored under the seat and floor, will be leased separately.
“The monthly cost of the battery, plus the electric charge, will be less than the cost of gasoline,” Ghosn said.'

Of course, they may not hit their targets, but they are well aware of what cost they need to aim at, and developed the technology and specifications with their targets in mind.

Their area number of other price considerations, including rebates and things like the London congestion charge.

Very important in my mind is the very low cost of servicing and inherent simplicity of avoiding the hybrid approach.

We have fairly good data on this, as Smith electric vehicles who are now working in conjunction with US firms have made electric vehicles for many, many years.

Oil changes are a thing of the past, and even brake wear is reduced by regenerative braking.

I don't think the 400 volt charger can accurately be described as 'scary', although it is certainly expensive and for use in commercial environments.
With proper design there should be no danger at all, and standards are already being laid down.
If you think about it, when you take a shower you have an electrical appliance which you use in conjunction with water all over it!
Not too many die from electrocution in the shower, outside of the movies, and I expect those charging their cars will be equally safe.

No mention of the Mitsubishi iMiEV?
That seems likely to hit the streets in quantity before the NIssan, and can certainly be taken on the highway.

Ghosn has said (sorry, did not keep the link) that he doubts that Better Place technology is needed, and is anyway inappropriate at the moment with battery technology changing so rapidly.
AESC, his battery people, must have assured him that they are in line for swift improvements in both price and performance.
They will already have the next couple of generations being tested in the lab.

Aug 05 07:28 AM

[A Barrel Full:]

I think that the article is too upbeat.

There are still massive challenges to making electric vehicles true competitors to gasoline powered ones. I am sure that there is a market for a decent number of them, but it will take a long time for battery costs to decline enough and charging infrastructure to be widespread enough, for them to be really mainstream.

They will primarily focus on markets where the advantages are greatest, for example where gasoline taxes are high, or good rebates are available.

Aug 05 08:31 AM

[jerrydd:]

Good article!!

A Barrel Full and John.

Batteries are now down to $.30wthr or less so the Nissan pack is $7200 and the tax credit is $7500, thus no extra costs.

There are few things that are new here. Nissan built a couple hundred back 10 yrs ago with Lithium batteries and many more in Japan so that is not a big deal.

EV drive is old hat and cheaper than an ICE as only a couple motor parts and no transmission. The rest of the EV is standard car production tech. So really after a couple yrs no reason EV's should cost more than a ICE does with 1/4 the running costs.

I believe Nissan will be the leader in EV's especially if the A Better Place battery leasing/swapping program goes nation wide and they use it.

Davewmart wrote
No mention of the Mitsubishi iMiEV?
That seems likely to hit the streets in quantity before the NIssan, and can certainly be taken on the highway.

Well see if they do hit the streets first and more important, at what price as those mention are way too much even with the battery rebate at $48k? in Japan. Now if they price it realistically then Nissan, others could have a fight on their hands. If not they might be out of the game.
And Smith is a company to watch as their commercial EV business will really take off once gas hits $4/gal again.

Chevy Volt, other plug in hybrids too are over priced if they keep their quoted prices as they are. No reason these should be over $25k after battery rebate.

All these will be coming out in an increasing oil priced market, $3-5/gal, in 1-3 yrs should drive there sales nicely unless they overprice them. The biggest problem will be producing enough for the market.

The Ford Focus EV could be a factor as it could be ramped up fast and as it's a conversion by Magna so not production limited.

Aug 05 09:14 AM

[jmark:]

What will be the source of the electricity to power such cars? How much energy is required to produce such cars? Why assume that, on the short to medium term, the presence of enthusiastic venture capital indicates that Americans will embrace these cars (outside of greenie-villes)?

Aug 05 11:40 AM

[John Addison:]

Thanks for the good comments and insights. Jerrydd, your inputs most closely match what I am hearing. It will be good sport to speculate on Nissan sale and/or lease decisions until they finalize their decisions next year. There are hundreds of EV players, so the article did not mention all. The Mitsubishi iMiEV looks beautiful, but last year they were talking around $50K USA. We will see what energy storage looks like in 10 years and if material scarcity is a big issue. John, lithium's success does not diminish lead-acid's success. We are approaching 100 million e-bikes, e-scooters & LEV in Asia. Over 99% are low cost and use lead-acid. I'm having dinner with the GM Volt people next week at the Plug-in Hybrid Conference. Hopefully I'll have some new posts soon.

Aug 05 11:48 AM

[jerrydd:]

Hi John A. I've been using lead for over a decade in my EV's and it's fine. I use 6vdc tration batteries though mostly. But recently I got too good a deal on 12AGMDynasty's I'm happy with.

But I fear CL's will cost the same as Lithium/kwhr at far less weight. I buy LiFePo4 EV size batteries now for less that many Lead AGM's/kwhr.

Ultrabattery got a nice Gov grant today for their CL among the many other battery grants. Did Cat get one for the Firefly?

Aug 05 05:30 PM

[Eck:]

John - My hand slipped when I tried to give your 11:48 AM comment a thumbs up, and I hit the thumbs down icon. Apparently there's no way to fix it. So the tally is incorrect, and I apologize for my clumsiness.

GREAT ARTICLE. I've learned to trust Nissan products. We have had a Maxima, Murano, and G35 Coupe, and they have all performed beyond expectations. A friend's mother was driving his Altima Coupe last week, when it got creamed from behind by a dump truck, and pushed across a state highway. The truck driver never hit his brakes, and the car is totaled, but we were relieved to learn that she walked away unscathed!

So, YES, I would look very closely at anything Nissan produces.

Hybrids may not be the answer, but I respect those who buy them. If nothing else, they're making a statement. Electric vehicles may not be the end-all solution either. Remember, they're still being charged by whatever polluting fuel is powering the grid, and you also have to factor-in the power line and conversion losses, and there is a "bigger footprint" due to the manufacturing processes of the batteries and the other added components. But ANYTHING to fill the gap until we have more permanent solutions such as hydrogen fuel cells is welcome. Let those who hate us DRINK their crude oil!

Aug 05 05:47 PM

[Davewmart:]

Lots of studies have been done on the impact on the grid.
Here is just one:
www.nyiso.com/public/w...
Google for many others.
The bottom line is that the impact is surprisingly small.
The reason for that is that they are way more efficient than petrol engined cars, and get about 4 miles for every kilowatthour of electricity!
To replace the energy content of the oil a petrol car uses, you would need to make the car store hundreds of kilowatt/hours, and it would be completely impractical.
Fortunately you don't need to.

ON the pricing for the Mitsubishi, great if Nissan manage to beat it, but I don't regard the Mitsubishi price as excessive for the first few.
They are going to fleet owners, who often have set routes for their cars and can use it towards the top end of the range without needing to go over it, and who will benefit from the low maintenance and not having to pay road tax and congestion charges.
That should help Mitsubishi to bring the costs down fairly fast for the rest of us, so it will just help their financing.
The reason that Nissan may be able to do better out of the gate is that they say that they are ahead on battery technology, although they must also have done very well on reducing costs on other systems.
GM for instance are saying that they have had to completely redesign things like the power steering for the Volt, which has put their costs up.
They ditched a lot of the mechanicals and had to go electric for these ancillary systems.
The sooner they spread the costs over more models the faster the costs should go down.

Most markets are a lot easier to introduce EV's than is the US.
Here in the UK petrol is around $6.50 US gallon,
and road tax for a mid-sized car would be around £150/year, whilst you would pay around £1250/year for the congestion charge in London.
So if you ran a car at close to the range of the Nissan, 100miles/day, you would do maybe 32000miles/year.
Petrol comes out at around £3500/year for a mid range car so with the congestion charge you are on around £4750/year, as against paying at £0.10kwh for off-peak perhaps £2.40/day for the Nissan, which is around £850/year.
So Nissan could charge up to around £3900/year for the battery pack without killing the economics.
We use 220volt supplies here and the temperature does not drop low enough to worry the battery.
The point is that Nissan can sell million of the things in the right markets and make financial sense for many customers before having to tackle the needs of customers in more difficult environments, say someone who commutes 70 miles each way in winter in Minnesota and buys gas at $3/gallon.

Aug 06 02:27 AM

[John Addison:]

Thanks for the added info and dialog. A typical engine powered vehicle is 15% efficient; an EV 65% efficient. Even with coal power at the other end you lower GHG on a lifecycle basis. Check out the Greet models at Argonne. Most early EV adopter fleets that I meet are also early adopters of solar and other RE for charging.

Aug 06 08:59 PM

[Davewmart:]

John, just discovered this:
'Based on AESC’s testing, the cells will retain more than 80% capacity after 7 years, including 70,000 km (43,496 miles).'
www.greencarcongress.c...
If this is the same as the lifespan of the batteries in the Leaf, it is pretty well screwed.
That is only around 450 recharges, and an average of 16-17 miles a day.
For a $10k battery that is around $0.22 a mile, just on battery costs.
Surely Nissan can't be daft enough to release something with those battery specs?
If you want to contact me, I am on brittanicone2007 at yahoo dot co dot uk

Aug 07 07:24 AM