MAY 28

40% of the power generated for Portland, Oregon comes from clean hydroelectric dams, so not every place is totally coal driven. My Leaf will be black and will be the only car I commute with, which represents 90% of my driving. This car makes perfect sense. Thank you, Nissan. FINALLY! Goodbye, filthy oil!

I agree with sue in the respect that all an EV in the united states will do at the moment is switch which source you are emitting your carbon from. However, it is a step in the right direction. It is also worth noting that EVs are actually creating consumer demand, which is good news because the success of the leaf will essentially dictate whether other motor vehicle companies go into the EV market in the future.

If however your electricity provider happens to be a renewable energy source, and you plan to replace your existing vehicle with an EV, then this is an excellent way to significantly reduce your carbon emissions.

Also, this isn't a logical arguement in favour of it, but I think it looks pretty awesome

The internal combustion engine (ICE) is at most 30% efficient, 40% for diesels, but that's only when it runs flat out near redline. In typical driving conditions, they are actually about 17% efficient. Fossil fuel power plants are 35-50% efficient, depending on the type. With electric motors are around 90% efficient, this means that the Leaf uses 1/2 to 1/3 of the oil that a Prius does. The Leaf is about the same size and weight as a Prius. If you're turning in an SUV, the savings are even greater! If 70% of the people bought electric cars, we could eliminate our need to import foreign oil.

Buying an electric car helps end the war on terror. Whether or not you think we're fighting for oil (which we would no longer need), part of the $700 billion we spend annually on foreign oil goes to people funding the terrorists. We keep that money here, they don't get funded. That money then stays in our economy too! That's like getting a stimulus package every year.

The Leaf also has a much simpler drive train. This leads to much lower maintenance costs and greater reliability.

It is also much easier to clean up the emissions from 10's of thousands of power plants than 100's of millions of vehicles. The sooner we transition to all electric vehicles the sooner we clean up the environment.

If you want to end the war, clean up the environment and give a boost to the economy, buy a Leaf!

Change is scary, my friends, but the future is now. Soon you will hear: "My daddy use to drive a car that needed gas. Wow, that's so gay."

You guys have covered many of them here.

Nine More Myths About Electric Cars:
http://www.forbes.com/2010/04/24/think-city-batteries-technology-breakthroughs-electric-car.html

4. You'll need to build a lot more power plants. Busted: Actually there's enough off-peak electricity in the U.S. to power 79% of U.S. driving demand. As more EVs are deployed, it's important to ensure that the smart-charging (time-based charging management) and vehicle-to-grid connectivity progresses as well. A connected network of millions of micro-energy storage devices (which is what EVs will become) provides significant opportunities to improve the stability and performance of electric grids and better balance peak demand.

I'm excited that I got my order confirmation last week, as they'll be contacting me by June 30th to schedule an electrician to wire up my garage for the LEAF. I'll be charging at work (which has a 10kw rooftop PV array) during the day, and I'll be adding a 3 KW array at home. Considering Seattle City Light's fuel mix is 88% hydro, even if I used 100% utility electricity, it's a big win for emissions reduction.

This car is beautiful.

"What this means is that in the US, EVs will substantively contribute to CO2 emissions instead of reducing them since power for these vehicles will usually come from coal fired power stations."

You can't drive 2 cars at once, so driving an electric car instead of a gas-powered car will definitely reduce emissions, even if the electricity comes from 100% coal. Yes, I did the math and it's true. However, the idea is to move electricity generation away from coal and towards more cleaner sources over time. Unlike gasoline, there are many sources of electricity (solar photovoltaic, solar thermal, wind, hydroelectric, geothermal, tidal, nuclear, etc.).

Also, as others have mentioned, electricity is produced domestically while most oil is imported. That's also good for the economy/jobs and national security.

This is really a positive bit of news not only for Nissan but for the future of electric cars. Maybe this time around there will be sincere efforts on the part of the auto makers to properly promote the electric car concept, and on the part of the American consumer to take it seriously as well.

Is that the Japs have taken the lead on this too. The Volt will need to come in at the 30k mark to be competitive.

As mentioned above, a future of mass EVs can very well lead to a revolution of the grid: millions of batteries than can "sell" energy during peak hours and purchase it overnight (when energy is mostly wasted as it is now).

I wish it had more range.

Ignoring the extremely NOT environmentally friendly nature of the batteries?

why?

Can a mini wind turbine be attached to the roof of a Leaf that will generate enough power so the Leaf is constantly charged. Perhaps a bike rake could be used as the base of a stationary mini turbine.

It seems incommprehensible to me that whilst a vast majority of puplic commenting on EVs never fail to point out that production of electricity from coal fired powerstations cause pollution, yet at the same time they completely fail to notice that production of gasoline causes massive amounts of pollution at various stages of production starting from:

1. exploration,
2. drilling,
3. transport,
4. storage,
5. refining,
6. transport to retail outlets, and
7. even going to get your car filled with gas causes pollution.
8. Gulf of Mexico, Oil tankers, other spills and accidents.

All of the above easily add up to way more than any pollution caused by electricity production to charge your EV.

So if we are comparing tailpipe emissions then EVs are 0 versus whatever toxic fumes come out of fossil fuel vehicles.

If on the other hand you want to compare total emission of energy production then you need to add the total pollution caused by oil production to the tailpipe emissions and you will find that EVs again win hands down without a contest.