Automotive News: Nissan Leaf

Showing posts with label Nissan Leaf. Show all posts

Saturday, March 12, 2011

Nissan Leaf Nice Cars

2:30 AM admin

Nissan Leaf

The Nissan Leaf (also formatted "LEAF" as a bacronym for Leading, Environmentally friendly, Affordable, Family car is a five-door mid-size hatchback electric car manufactured by Nissan and introduced in Japan and the U.S. in December 2010. The United States Environmental Protection Agency determined the range to be 117 kilometres (73 mi), with an energy consumption of 765 kJ/km (34 kWh per 100 miles) and rated the Leaf's combined fuel economy at 99 miles per gallon gasoline equivalent.
Deliveries began in the United States on December 11, 2010, and on December 22 in Japan. Sales are scheduled to begin in Portugal in January 2011, Ireland in February, the United Kingdom in March, and the Netherlands in June, with global market availability planned for 2012. According to Nissan initial availability is limited in quantities and to select markets and only for customers who made online reservations. The availability will be increased by the second quarter of 2011 with U.S. production planned for 2012.

Nissan Cannot Meet Demand for New Leaf EV, Production Shortages to Last Longer than Expected

4:23 AM admin

It has been known for a while now that Nissan is struggling with the Leaf’s slow rollout. The demand for the all-electric vehicle is so high that the Japanese maker has been forced to stop receiving new orders and concentrate on filling existing ones. However, projected production figures show that the company will only assemble 10,000 units until March 31, while it has already received 27,000 orders from the U.S., Japan and Europe.

The remaining 17,000 orders are likely to be filled in the next fiscal year starting April 1, during which Nissan will reach the maximum production capacity of 50,000 units at the Oppama plant in Japan.

Consequently, the automaker could take 33,000 more orders in the next fiscal year, but it hasn’t decided yet when it will do so. According to Chief Operating Officer Toshiyuki Shiga, Nissan wants to “deliver enough volume to the first lot” before giving new orders the green light.

One solution would be the opening of new assembly lines sooner than initially planned, but Shiga ruled out the possibility due to the fact that work has just started on the factory that would provide the additional lithium-ion battery packs needed.

That means Nissan's UK factory will begin producing Leafs in 2012, followed by the Tennessee plant in 2013, so the shortage could last longer than expected.