Nissan unveils world's first mass-market electric car, the Leaf

I'll bet all these hybrid and electric cars would be adopted by more people if they stopped assigning them fruity little names like "Leaf."<p>You think any man wants to ride around in the Leaf?

I've been half-heartedly shopping around for a car. I've been living for 2.5 years without one since selling my Nissan 350Z when moving to the valley from Austin. One of the reasons the shopping is half-hearted is that I think I kinda want an all-electric vehicle, and there aren't really any realistic electric vehicles available (my primary purpose would be for driving from Mountain View to San Francisco and back every week or so). The other reason is that I think that what I really want is another Z car.<p>What I'm saying is that I've loved my Nissans in the past, and if this comes to the States at a reasonable price point, it could very well be my next car.

For me, the most important sentence was near the end:<p>"The Leaf car battery can be charged to 80% capacity in about 20 minutes, compared with almost three and a half hours needed for the G-Wiz."<p>Seems totally reasonable for an intra-city commuting vehicle. I can't see why something like this (even with a 100mi range) wouldn't be popular in NYC, LA, or Boston.

The title is a bit misleading. Nissan just hopes it will be the first. Mitsubishi is planning to have their iMiev out at about that time or sooner as well. Actually, just about every car company is saying they'll have an electric out by 2011 these days.

Wow, the Leaf has a strong 'face' with a smirk:<p><a href="http://www.blogcdn.com/www.autoblog.com/media/2009/08/nissan-leaf_hi_003.jpg" rel="nofollow">http://www.blogcdn.com/www.autoblog.com/media/2009/08/nissan...</a><p>It's almost like one of the Pixar 'Cars' or the characters in the Chevron commercials from a ways back.

I've always wondered if it wouldn't be easier to use the grid to power cars instead of thousands of tank trucks on a daily basis to fill our gas stations which at the same time consume more gasoline.<p>From the practical point of view, we should use the oil to generate electricity, not to run our cars. Until we find a way to replace oil with nuclear, fision or whatever, then the grid remains intact we only change the source. And cars remain electric without any change.<p>See? blame BigOil for stomping his boot on the head of progress...