2010 Nissan LEAF : Electric Car

It would be easy to paint Nissan as late to the burgeoning U.S. green party, as the company essentially only counts the Altima Hybrid to sell among its alt-fuel offerings – and that sedan utilizes technology borrowed from Toyota, and it's only sold in a few states in small volumes. While that may be the case, Nissan says their near-term prospects are really quite different. While the company has admittedly been cautious in marketing alt-fuel vehicles in North America, they have been hard at work developing electric vehicles – as well as the advanced lithium-ion batteries to support them – since 1992. What's more, officials say they are now singularly well-placed to leapfrog "transitional" powertrain solutions like gas-electric hybrids in favor of genuine zero-emissions vehicles, and they are promising that their first pure-electric car will reach U.S. shores late next year.
Slated for launch in late 2010 in Japan, the United States, and Europe, the car will arrive on the market around the same time as the Chevrolet Volt.

Powered by a 24 kWh lithium ion battery pack mounted under the car’s floor, LEAF is based on a new pure-electric platform developed around the Tiida/Versa chassis. For reference, LEAF’s battery pack has roughly 40% the capacity of the one used in Tesla’s $100,000 Roadster.

LEAF can be charged up to 80 percent of its full capacity in just under 30 minutes via a quick charging station. Charging at home through a regular 220-volt outlet is estimated to take approximately eight hours. The vehicle’s motor is believed to deliver 107-horsepower and 206 pound-feet of torque.

LED headlights up front consume just 10 percent of the electricity of conventional lamps, and optimized aerodynamics further improve overall efficiency.
The car will be the first model compatible with Nissan’s recently announced iPhone application that will allow owners to monitor their car’s battery level. away from their vehicle, the application will let owners see how much charge is left in their car’s battery, how much time is required for a full charge and, for public charging stations, the approximate cost of a fill up.