Nissan Chief Predicts 500,000 Leafs Worldwide by 2012
The head of Nissan-Renault, Carlos Ghosn, is bullish about the prospects of the Leaf all-electric vehicle.
The Leaf faces no real competition as it enters the market, and Nissan will have the largest capacity to manufacture new vehicles of all the companies trying to bring an electric car to the market, Ghosn said.
While it plans to begin delivering the Leaf by the end of this year, Nissan is planning for a production capacity of 500,000 vehicles in North America, Japan and Europe by 2012. The automaker wants to be able to respond to demand on any scale, and Ghosn predicts a car market ready for 10% of all-electric vehicles by 2020.
Ghosn says 56,000 Leafs have been ordered in the U.S., though that could be the number of dealers ordering them, not consumers. The company will begin to take orders in Japan and Europe soon. Ghosn also believes that fleet orders for taxi companies, post offices and municipalities will begin to add up quickly once people see the advantages of zero-emission vehicles. This could turn out to be especially true in markets like California.
Nissan Ready for Electric Vehicle Offensive (BusinessWeek)
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Just so I can be educated, if there are several vehicles of this kind that we're referring to, do we say Nissan Leafs or Nissan Leaves? :)
The plural of a Toronto Maple Leaf is "Toronto Maple Leafs." Of course, sometimes they're also referred to as the Maple Laffs...
Large numbers of electric cars could be sold, if incentives are offered, such as an oil avoidance tax credit from the feds. An annual tax credit of $750, financed by a hike of a couple cents in the federal gasoline tax would do the trick. Somp people would buy a full electric for commuting duties and inner city driving and would have a conventional vehicle for long trips. The states would have to offer electric car buyers an exemption from the state sales tax on the vehicle and minimal annual registration fees. The economics have to work to get large numbers of people to go electric, but it's critical that we do it now. The program NOVA reported that one fourth of all the oil ever used on earth was consumed over just the past 10 years. The early adopters to electric cars need to be rewarded for kicking the oil habit.
You pay for the car body, the battery, and the electricity. That's like paying separately for the car body with no engine, the engine, AND the gas. Talk about finding ways to make the public pay multiple times for the same thing.
Let's also get something else straight. Electric cars work great for short trips that start and end in a city, but rarely are such inter-urban trips in large cities chosen to be taken by car over mass transit.
I know Hertz is one of the early adopters, and will offer the Leaf at select locations. The day they allow the electrics to go one-way across the country like any other car is the day the country will finally believe electrics can reliably handle all types of traffic, weather, and geographic conditions.
"The program NOVA reported that one fourth of all the oil ever used on earth was consumed over just the past 10 years."
Yeah and we all know what a reliable source NOVA is! Got any more jokes for the board?