the Leaf EV has a top speed of 90 mph, and can go roughly 100 miles on one charge (depending on weather, temperature, and driving conditions). It is powered by a 24 kilowatt-hour (kWh) lithium-ion battery pack (which Nissan has been developing for roughly 18 years) that weighs 600 pounds and powers an 80-kilowatt AC synchronous electric motor.
The 2011 Nissan Leaf EV will be available in two versions, with the standard Leaf SV at a suggested retail price of $32,780. The premium Leaf SL costs $940 more, and is equipped with a small rooftop solar panel that provides a trickle charge for the battery back and a rear-facing camera that makes backing up easier. But Perry says the Leaf will be fully eligible for a maximum federal tax credit of $7,500, and the state of California also provides a “clean-vehicle” rebate of up to $5,000—which together could make the overall price of a standard Leaf EV as low as $20,280.
That compares to a base price of more than $100,000 for the Tesla, and as Perry frequently pointed out, Nissan developed the Leaf with much more pragmatic, value-based consumers in mind. “When we set out, we said we want to make this car a mass market car,” Perry says. “We want to make it mass affordable—an EV for everybody.”
Nissan has found that many of the consumers who have registered to buy a Leaf are early adopters. “They are the ones who also are standing in line for an iPad and a 4G phone,” Perry says. “But for the pragmatists, buying a Leaf has to make sense from a total cost of ownership perspective.” In this respect, Nissan calculates that a Leaf will cost almost $400 a year to charge (charging at 0.11 cents per kilowatt-hour, which works out to 0.026 cents per mile at 15,000 miles driven annually). In comparison, Nissan estimates that buying fuel for a car that gets 25 mpg costs about $1,800 a year (with gas priced at $3 a gallon, which works out to about 12 cents a mile to operate at 15,000 miles a year).
Other maintenance costs for the Leaf are minimal, Perry says. “There’s no oil to change. No fluids. All you have to do is maybe rotate your tires.”
I was impressed, and the current price makes the Leaf a compelling deal. The real question, of course, is whether the Leaf’s price will still seem as attractive to consumers after the federal tax credit ends. The tax credit is set to decrease as production ramps up, and it ends altogether once Nissan makes 200,000 Leaf EVs. As Perry put it, “Our job as we hit scale is to lower our costs so we can live in a world where the electric vehicle is affordable.”
