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"The has certainly generated lots of buzz (a little EV humor here; very little...). The company already has more than 20,000 reservations on the books, plus whatever General Electric may add. (GE says it will have some 25,000 EVs\u2014including 12,000 GM products, e.g., Chevrolet Volts\u2014in its corporate fleet by 2015.)   Our test Leaf is an SL-E, the most telling difference between the SL and its lesser SV sibling being the SL&amp;#039;s solar panel integrated into its rear spoiler, a rearview monitor built into its navigation display, a standard cargo cover, foglights and a HomeLink Universal Transceiver. (More on that &amp;quot;-E&amp;quot; later.)   A Leaf SV&amp;#039;s list price is $32,780. Our SL&amp;#039;s is $33,720, plus the cost of a few options shown. Each then subtracts whatever state or local spiffs apply, together with a $7500 credit off the year&amp;#039;s federal income tax. Leases are $349 or $379 per month, respectively. Forget the federal credit and likely the other spiffs as well if you choose to lease; in a sense, the federal one is already figured into the lease rate.   Some thoughts on EV incentives. The federal tax credit is based on battery size (BEVs and PHEVs generally qualify for the full $7500). What&amp;#039;s more, as currently worded, it has a manufacturer limit, essentially phasing out once that automaker has sold 200,000 such cars. Also, for those owing no more than $7500 in federal tax, the credit is a moot point (i.e., it&amp;#039;s not a rebate). Last, some state allowances have predetermined pools of available funding, and once exhausted, the spiff goes away. The moral: If incentives are crucial to your BEV/PHEV attraction, get to the market with some alacrity. It&amp;#039;s not clear that even federal EV enthusiasm can coexist with fiscal realities.   In any event, here&amp;#039;s what causes the excitement: The Nissan Leaf is a pure EV, a battery EV, not a hybrid, not a range-extended anything. A BEV&amp;#039;s only emissions are those of the electric utility supplying its juice. A BEV&amp;#039;s range is only whatever it can support from plug to plug.   The Leaf&amp;#039;s styling aims for that middle ground between outright ordinary and EV weird. You&amp;#039;ll find proponents on either side of this one. I believe it looks good in the metal, a little larger with a bit more presence than it portrays in photos. In actuality, the Leaf&amp;#039;s 106.3-in. wheelbase matches that of a ; its overall length of 175.0 in. is 2.3 in. shorter. An EV giveaway is the Leaf&amp;#039;s blunt nose, wherein under a flap lurks its plug-in receptacle, the one designed for dedicated 220-volt Level II charging. A Level I 110-v adaptor is stored aft in the car&amp;#039;s fairly ample (and quite deep) rear hatch area.   The Leaf qualifies as a midsize car, and I can claim to fit in the back seat\u2014albeit head- and knee-room snug\u2014directly behind my preferred driving position. This rear area is belted for three occupants (unlike the 2-place seating), though in truth they would best be a smallish (and not hyperactive) trio. Up front, the Leaf has abundant head room, leg room, elbow room, squirm room, ingress/egress room and the like.   Its interior is fully equipped indeed; not just the obvious stuff like electric window lifts, automatic climate control and AM/FM/CD with MP3/CD and USB/iPod capability. Standard as well are navigation system, XM Satellite radio, Bluetooth hands-free phone system and a trip computer tracking instant or average energy consumption, driving time, outside temperature and autonomy range. This last feature works in conjunction with the nav display, exhibiting in concentric circles the car&amp;#039;s real-time range. As long as home or a known (and dependable!) plug-in location lies within the circles, you&amp;#039;re in clover.   Also standard is a 3-year subscription to CARWINGS Connection. This is a neat bit of telematics linking the Leaf and your smart phone. You can monitor the state of battery charge or charging status, start or finish the charging event or operate the heat/air conditioning. This last trick addresses a significant aspect of BEV operation, namely the heavy electrical drain of keeping occupants comfortable. This is especially crucial in cold weather, where a BEV&amp;#039;s heater is inherently an energy hog. Note, instead, you can precondition your Leaf\u2014via your smart phone\u2014while it&amp;#039;s still connected to the grid.   Coming in time, though not yet a Leaf feature, are heated steering wheel and seats. That is, why heat the whole cabin when only your hands and torso come in contact with it?   Another cool feature of the Leaf is its dash display&amp;#039;s energy monitoring. One aspect has a little graphical tree adding branches\u2014and accumulated trees being saved\u2014through efficient driving practices. The enthusiast&amp;#039;s goal, of course, is to grow trees without driving like a dork.   And, rejoice, this isn&amp;#039;t all that difficult. Like any EV, the Leaf&amp;#039;s long suit is short-course acceleration. An electric motor, you&amp;#039;ll recall, produces its maximum torque from utter tip-in. Nissan claims the Leaf will beat a V-6 across the intersection to 40 mph or so, and we confirmed the likes of this regularly. All bets are off on the freeway or in the quarter mile, however.   It&amp;#039;s not that the Leaf is an absolute slug. Our track lads found it reaching 60 mph from a standstill in 9.4 seconds. True, not exactly territory, but to put this in perspective, the Chevy Volt takes 8.8 sec., a takes 9.7 and a perfectly zippy does a 9.0.   Drive aggressively, and you won&amp;#039;t experience the Leaf&amp;#039;s LA-4-cycle range of 100 miles, nor even the Monroney-sticker EPA-adjusted 73 miles, nor its overall 99 mpg equivalent, 106 mpge city/92 mpge highway. However, if climate, terrain and driving are gentle, it&amp;#039;s not unreasonable to see 140 miles between plug-ins. Nissan engineers note that a cold day with inefficient traffic patterns could cut range to as little as 60 miles.   In our time with the Leaf, its effective range varied from 69 miles on the day of track testing to a rather more representative 87 miles during our photo sessions. The track day was only a bit less complex than Normandy on D-Day, what with an 0-dark-30 start and not daring to hope that the shopping center near the track would have a compatible and operating\u2014and empty\u2014charging station.   This makes a point about BEV suitability for us, you or society in general. It&amp;#039;s projected that by 2012 the country will have more than 12,000 Level II public charging stations. By contrast, there are rather more than 100,000 places in the U.S.\u2014each with multiple &amp;quot;chargers&amp;quot;\u2014where you can get that old fuel, gasoline, in a few minutes.   Certainly in the near- and even mid-term, BEV drivers are the pioneers.   In fact, most of these pioneers will do their charging at home. Exploit full range, and a complete refill of Leaf electrons may take 20 hours at ordinary 110-volt house current. Do what most Leafers do, install a dedicated (Level II) 220-volt outlet, and the deed is done in half that time. We&amp;#039;ll have such a unit here at the office. Last, Level III DC Fast Chargers are capable of bringing a typical EV to 80-percent capacity in 30 minutes. See , for our Level III tripping in a Mitsubishi i-MiEV. (By the way, the Americanized widebody version of this car is now called simply the &amp;quot;i.&amp;quot;)   Speaking of letters, I should cite that the added &amp;quot;-E&amp;quot; in our Leaf&amp;#039;s model name designates the SL-E&amp;#039;s involvement in The EV Project, a Department of Energy-funded research effort organized by ECOtality North America. As many as 5700 Nissan Leafs and 2600 Chevrolet Volts take part, each getting a free home Level II charger and the car&amp;#039;s Level III DC Fast Charge receptacle (this latter, otherwise a $700 Leaf option). Participants provide in-depth details of charging patterns and other usage during this 2-year project.   Already popping up around the country, Level III charging is seen as a way of encouraging stopovers at local shopping malls or eateries. Often offered at no charge (oops, another bit of EV humor), it&amp;#039;s figured these electrons come at decidedly less cost than you&amp;#039;d spend shopping or noshing. On the other hand, be cognizant that Level III charging is to a battery what burnouts are to a conventional car&amp;#039;s clutch. A few have no detriment, but....   Thus far, I&amp;#039;ve talked only of charging, shopping, noshing and other mundane activities. What about enthusiast driving?   The Leaf is not a . However, its 24-kWh laminated lithium-ion battery array resides down low beneath the seats and thus precludes excess tippiness of its 3593-lb. test mass. The car&amp;#039;s reasonable 56/44 weight distribution helps as well. I recall during my Franklin, Tennessee, drive I turned a local\u2014and traffic-free\u2014roundabout into an impromptu skidpad. As reported in a January 2011 , my Leaf did nothing embarrassing in this hooligan activity. At a rather more proper venue, our track testers report skidpad performance of 0.81g and a quite impressive slalom run of 65.5 mph. (Alas, nowhere on the roads of Franklin, Tennessee, could I find an appropriate setup of test cones.)   In the November 2010 issue of R&amp;amp;amp;T, I raised the question &amp;quot;&amp;quot; Our experience with the Nissan Leaf, albeit thus far a limited one, confirms a point made there. BEVs work extremely well for many applications of personal mobility, not at all well for others, but they clearly have an enthusiast&amp;#039;s component. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.roadandtrack.com/new-cars/road-tests/reviews/a16843/2011-nissan-leaf-sl-e/>