The Nissan LEAF Zero Emission Tour began in Los Angeles on November 13th, 2009. This goodwill tour of Nissan’s first all-electric vehicle will span 22 cities in 11 states along with the District of Columbia and Vancouver. This tour is not only educating the public on the LEAF EV but encouraging involvement from communities nationwide. The Nissan LEAF Zero Emissions Student Competition, for example, will grant a $500 scholarship to a student who describes a zero-emissions future featuring the LEAF. Nissan North America is working behind the scenes of this tour to make its December 2010 rollout of the LEAF EV easier in San Francisco, Seattle and beyond.
San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom and other regional leaders appeared with Nissan representatives last Monday. This public appearance with a LEAF EV showed the commitment of Bay Area cities to a comprehensive EV infrastructure. Newsom will work with Nissan representatives and members of the Bay Area EV Corridor to make the LEAF EV practical in the region. The Bay Area EV Corridor communities of San Francisco, San Jose and Oakland will use the LEAF EV as the first test vehicle of its EV infrastructure.
Nissan is also working with the city of Seattle to simplify next year’s LEAF EV rollout. The automaker and the city of Seattle are working with Phoenix-based eTec to install public chargers in mall parking lots and stand-alone EV stations throughout the metro area. eTec benefits from a $100 million grant from the Department of Energy to facilitate EV infrastructure development. In addition to Seattle EV stations, eTec will use its DOE grant to create similar stations in Arizona, California, Oregon and Tennessee. Nissan and Seattle mayor Greg Nickels appeared with a LEAF EV touring vehicle last Wednesday to celebrate this public-private partnership.
Nissan’s regional partnerships and national EV tour are bringing to light advancements in green automotive technology. Consumers in the Pacific Northwest and California in particular are realizing that other automakers are delaying EV development in favor of hybrid models requiring less overhead. Nissan is attempting to corner the market on production EVs within the next two years while Toyota, Honda and others are still working on prototypes. The Nissan LEAF EV will run between $25,000 and $35,000 USD from the start, requiring a small premium from eco-conscious drivers. Nissan is solving the last lingering problem for the LEAF EV rollout with its local partnerships, creating an EV infrastructure that will make public charging commonplace instead of novel.
