In the fall of 2008, I was green with cleantech envy when my colleague Greg Huang got to test drive a prototype Tesla Roadster, the luxury, all-electric sports car made by Silicon Valley’s Tesla Motors (NASDAQ: [[ticker:TSLA]]), which became a public company just last week.
But yesterday I turned over a new Leaf—and then I took it for a test drive through La Jolla.
As Greg was with the Tesla, I was struck by how eerily quiet Nissan’s compact, 100-percent electric vehicle (EV) is when it accelerates. It is so silent that there is little sense of speed; no engine revving, no whining RPMs. Even starting the Leaf can be deceiving. No engine cranking. Just push a button and it’s on.
The early production model of Nissan’s zero-emission Leaf EV arrived this week at Nissan Design America (the Japanese carmaker’s San Diego design center), the first stop in a cross-country media tour. Nissan plans to begin production of the compact hatchback EV in Japan later this year, and the first U.S. deliveries are expected here by December.
“San Diego is going to be ground zero for our launch,” says Nissan’s Mark Perry. “The whole country is going to be looking at what happens here.”
Perry, who is director of product planning and advanced technology strategy for Nissan North America, says Nissan made San Diego its beachhead for reasons that include strong consumer demand, a supportive local utility (SDG&E), and support from state and local government.
As I explained last month, San Diego has emerged as a testbed for new EVs and the necessary electric charging infrastructure. It is among 11 metro areas slated to
