Nissan to sell electric car for under €30,000
Japanese carmaker Nissan has announced that the company's Leaf electric car will be sold in Europe for under 30,000 euros (37,105 dollars) after various government incentives.
The Leaf, which stands for Leading, Environmentally Friendly, Affordable, Family car, is billed by Nissan as the world's first mass-produced electric vehicle with zero emissions.
The car will go on sale in Portugal and the Netherlands in December, and Britain and Ireland in February 2011.
Reservations can be made from July, while the car will be rolled out every major western European country by the end of next year.
"Nissan leads the industry by being the first automaker to offer an affordable zero-emission car," said Simon Thomas, Senior Vice President, Sales and Marketing, adding the price will include the cost of a lithium battery.
"It's a pure electric vehicle, with no tailpipe emissions and very low running costs."
The vehicle will cost 29,955 euros in Portugal and 29,995 euros in Ireland after government incentives.
In Britain, the Leaf will sell for 23,350 pounds after a state incentive of 5,000 pounds.
The price in the Netherlands will be €32,839 -- but there will be extra subsidies that will slash the cost by between €6,000-€19,000 .
The Japanese firm, which is 43.4-percent owned by France's Renault, forecasts that electric vehicles will account for ten percent of worldwide car sales by 2020.
The five-seater hatchback Leaf has a range of 160 kilometres (100 miles), can be rapid-charged to 80 percent of its battery capacity in 30 minutes, and travels at a top speed of more than 140 kilometres (90 miles) per hour.
Nissan added that its electric car will cost around the same as a diesel or hybrid vehicle, like Toyota's Prius.
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Alex Ellul
May 18th 2010, 11:46
A revolution is on the way which will hit Malta too. LPG powered vehicles and electric vehicles. Both are clean w.r.t. the micro environment, that is, LPG emits just water vapour and CO2, both innocuous, even beneficial to the environment, while electric cars are emissions-free on the road, but the electrical power has to be produced by burning hydrocarbon fuel at the power stations. The emissions here can be totally controlled, at an expense obviously, but still could be clean.
Vehicle batteries are on the verge of a paradigm change, namely, new technology that is lead-free, light, and can be charged in minutes. What Nissan has managed to do is the beginning of the future of road transportation. The future is here and our gov must prepare our country for this.
Furthermore there are new developments in energy production (not wind or solar, but chemical/nuclear) that will change the way we live. But this may take a decade or two.
John Visanich
May 18th 2010, 10:40
Sorry to disappoint you, but it looks queerer than a Toyota Prius.
Peter Korsten
May 18th 2010, 08:24
That would be an ideal car for Malta (if it doesn't look as weird as the Prius, which is deliberately styled that way), but probably the government won't find too many incentives in their coffers.
G. Grech
May 18th 2010, 08:03
We have to wait and see how much the car would cost in Malta. Our tax regime typically doubles the cost of a car. The government never bothered to come up with incentives to remove old junks from the road, and replace them with new vehicles. He’s happy taxing heavily the old ones.
Michelle Vella Wood
May 18th 2010, 07:37
Wow! Now it ONLY costs 3 times the cost of my current car (of course I haven't factored in all the taxes the Maltese government will include)..
Sorry...still unaffordable for most people
John Vella
May 18th 2010, 14:27
or you can do it yourself, this guy makes it look easy! I wonder why its that expensive.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JWtxRo6ZSTM
Jonathan Scerri
May 18th 2010, 07:35
To sell electric vehicles as "Zero Emissions" is a marketing cheat. These vehicles need to be recharged with power orignating from power stations (and in our case that is surely not low emissions, especially if they run on HFO).
Admittedly however, electric cars are more efficient as the motor is only used when required unlike convential internal combustion engines that have to keep running even in traffic. Additionally, electric vehicles can recover energy when braking.
As a side note, € 30,000 does not really make it a family car, does it?
Peter Korsten
May 18th 2010, 09:58
For that amount of money, you can buy a car with a 200+ BHP engine and all the extras. Not very environmentally friendly, but a lot more fun to drive. :)
Ruben Hili
May 18th 2010, 12:11
@Jonathan Scerri.
Electric Car does not carry a motor....they only depend on batteries. Only hybrid has both electric and motor. And for the emission...if you compare the emission from a Power Station for 30mins to charge you car with the amount of CO2 generated from a motor we can say that its 0 emission.
Please choose the reason of your report below: