VICTORIA STATION — I am seriously proud of our friends at Nissan. We have known for a while that they were working on something big. But today’s stories on the new Nissan Leaf are exciting.
“100% emission-free” (excluding electricity generation emissions).
How cool is that?
Faced with petrol at £5+ a gallon it’s going to fly off the shelves, I would have thought. And London Mayor Boris Johnson says he’ll get 25,000 charging points in the city by 2015.
It’s going to move fast.
I am also counting on people like the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to push these kind of vehicles into the developing world. Better 200 hundred of them in the sub-continent that one in your driveway in Seattle.
The bit that I am really excited about though is… the quiet!
Delivery vans, motorcycles, rust-buckets, buses… how quiet can they get? How fast?
Imagine hearing… natural sounds! Like your child crying or the neighbour’s cat!? Amazing.
We like to talk about how good we are at change. “Computers! Look how fast we learned to use them!” But nothing like this, at this speed.
Bring on the new innovation and changes to transportation and fuel consumption.
/df
Hmmmm… the quiet. Until some bright spark at Health & Safety decides that they’re too quiet and thus a hazard to children, pedestrians and pets. Then we’ll be forced to install claxons on the bonnets.
But I’m with you. Amazing technology. Bring it on. Well done, Nissan!
Indeed, well done Nissan. When I was working with them on this they called it the global EV revolution, nice to see it’s penetrating the UK.
Nice plan Boris but this will put even more demand on the national grid which is already far too fragile and is fed on fossil fuels.
Dream of electric vehicles (powered by nuclear).
I don’t know where those charging points are going to go in London. You can’t even park right now, so to be able to park and charge is going to be very interesting. Will they add the £3 of electricity needed for a full charge onto the parking?
I’ve done some running calculations and comparisons on my linked blog.
Dear readers,
Have a look at Ben’s blog today (19/03/10) on this. It’s great reading — and amazing maths.
I’d like to see the maths on the CO2 of electricity production.
The Prius was rubbished a lot at launch, but — as you are saying — is quite a success. In many admirable ways. Maybe mostly because it’s easy and cheap without compromise.
Obviously someone will up the ante. Maybe it’ll be Nissan’s Leaf. Maybe not.
It won’t be an Edsel though.
/df
Thanks David.
I have the CO2 figures here but the figures vary so much depending on which report you read that I was keen not to include such subjective information.
The figures are very interesting though and, if enough people see value in it, I’ll publish the Prius/Leaf comparison.
Silent cars in London! As a parent of two young children and a cyclist….very scary!
I’ve done the CO2 calculations and published. Take a look:
http://www.jaffacake.net/dx/nissan-leaf-hidden-emissions