Q: Reception on the dashboard, here. Audio-visual, range a hundred and fifty miles.
James Bond: Ingenious, and useful too. Allow a man to stop off for a quick one en route.
Q: It has not been perfected, out of years of patient research, ENTIRELY for that purpose, 007. And incidentally, we’d appreciate its return, along with all your other equipment, INTACT for once, when you return from the field.
– Goldfinger
Nissan is in the middle of a big marketing push to show off its all-electric car, the Nissan LEAF on a Zero Emission Tour, covering 22 cities in 11 U.S. states, as well as the District of Columbia and Vancouver.
It rolled into Seattle today. Nissan will next be at OMSI in Portland on Thursday, Dec. 17th with the vehicle on display in various locations into the following week.
Electric cars like the Nissan LEAF run only on batteries. It is not a hybrid. That means when the battery dies you’re dead. It uses a 24kWh lithium-ion battery pack with a range of 100 miles (160 km).
The Nissan LEAF has an advanced IT system. A dash-mounted monitor displays Nissan LEAF’s remaining power – or “reachable area” – in addition to showing a map of nearby charging stations. They’re always connected to a global data center with support, information, and entertainment for drivers.
When the Leaf is plugged in, it will continue to “talk” to the driver via a smart phone. E-mail notifications alert when the battery is full, and charging can be scheduled for specific hours to take advantage of varying electricity pricing.
GM’s Volt will also have Blackberry and iPhone apps to control some vehicle functions.
The EV Project hopes to rollout charge stations across the country. San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom announced this week that Nissan would be bringing its all-electric LEAF, to the Bay Area market in 2010.
Speaking on behalf of the Bay Area Electric Vehicle Corridor program, Newsom said Nissan will work with San Francisco and the Bay Area to promote and build-out an EV charging infrastructure, including customer installation of home charging equipment. Car-sharing companies like Zipcar and City CarShare may also be partners.
Nissan won’t be specific about the price of the Leaf, but expects it to fall somewhere between $25,000 and $33,000. A $7,500 federal tax break will also likely apply. It will go on sale next year in five American markets (Seattle, San Diego, Oregon, Tennessee and the Phoenix/Tucson).
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Obama Announces $3.4B in Electric “Smart Grid” Grants, WiMAX SmartGrid Coming to 700K Australians, Home Networking: A Universal Spec?, Google Power Meter, M2M: Big Deal, Wireless Power Standard Emerging, and Sprint Announces Smart Grid Ambitions, ABI: Stimulus Means Big Bucks for Wireless, The Smart Grid: Licensed or Unlicensed Spectrum, Cellular-enabled SCADA, Smart Grid: Dumb or What?, Smart Grid: It’s Alive!, Google: Smart Power R US, 900 Mhz Telemetry, Traffic Cameras and ITS and the Corpus Christi Cloud.
