Nissan Turns Over A New Leaf

Nissan announced the specifications for the new improved Leaf plug in car.  Jay Cole at InsideEvs wrote an excellent article on the new Leaf that is linked below.

http://insideevs.com/2016-nissan-leaf-107-miles/

The Green Machine’s take on the New Leaf is that it will continue to be the best seller among plug in cars but it will not reach the original stated goal of 150,000 vehicles a year in US sales.  Remember Dr. Chu loaned Nissan a bunch for the battery and car assembly factories in Smyrna Tennessee with the stated goal of 150,000 vehicles a year and 200,000 battery packs a year. 

http://energy.gov/articles/secretary-chu-announces-closing-14-billion-loan-nissan

Rather than dwell on Chu Chu’s incompetence let’s focus on the positive.  Nissan does have a good car in the Leaf and having a range of over 100 miles makes it a pretty practical daily vehicle.  The cost is reasonable and Nissan is probably losing some money each car it sells.  I took a look at the cost of buying a 2013 used Leaf here in the Bay Area.  One in excellent condition with less than 20,000 miles can be bought for under $10,000.  When my old C280 dies I may actually buy a used Leaf.

Oh Bummer said we would have a million EVs on the road by the end of 2015.  Well he was wrong.  He listened to Chu back in 2011.  Actually Oh Bummer was wrong on just about everything he touched or funded except keeping the auto companies alive.

http://www.energy.gov/sites/prod/files/edg/news/documents/1_Million_Electric_Vehicle_Report_Final.pdf

We will have approximately 400,000 EVs on road of which 1,700 were Fiskers and 117 were CODA’s.  Man I sure mocked those two fake companies in many blogs.  The person who Trump would call more stupid than Chu is Thomas Friedman who did not want Oh Bummer to save the auto companies and who thought Coda, Fisker, and Better Place would rule the flat world.  Here is my blog where I tell Tommy Boy he ain’t so smart.

http://www.greenexplored.com/2012/12/thomas-friedmans-battery-is-flat.html

In summary the EV story is that it serves a small niche market, the batteries are really not getting cheaper but are getting to be longer lived enduring many more charge discharge cycles than first predicted. This means lower cost of ownership which is very positive.

Interestingly Nissan is the Hebrew First Month.  Passover is the 15 day of Nissan. It is always celebrated in the spring.  Maybe the Nissan Leaf is actually the beginning of spring for more EV sales.  The Hebrew calendar is somewhat strange.  Nissan is the first month but New Year’s Day is not celebrated in Nissan.  Rosh Hashanah is the first day of Tishrei (Tish Ray) which is the seventh month.  Maybe Nissan can launch the Tish Ray as a performance electric Z car to compete with Sting Ray.   Happy New Year for 5776 and may all your driving whether electric, gasoline, diesel, CNG, or pedal be safe.