Nissan LEAF: A play for affordability at $25,280. But is it practical?

By Jerry Brown
BrownonGreen.Net

Nissan unveiled the retail price for its all-electric Nissan LEAF this week and said it’ll start taking reservations for the car on April 20.  It’ll sell for $32,780, or $25,280 with the federal tax credit.

That puts the LEAF in the clearly affordable range.  But is it practical?  With a maximum range of 100 miles on a full battery charge it’s not a car I’d buy.

Proponents argue most of us don’t drive that far most days. I'll grant them that. But some of us drive farther than that on some days.  I’m one of them.  I regularly drive 100 miles or more in a given day.  In a city as spread out as Denver, it’s not hard to do.

The LEAF won’t get you from Denver to Colorado Springs and back.  Depending on what part of town you live in, a trip from Denver to Boulder and back will push the car’s outer limits.  And, of course, the 100 miles is the optimum range.  You won’t get that far on a hot summer day or a cold winter day.

And someone who lives in the Los Angeles-San Diego freeway jungle would have to use the LEAF an extra car.  There's no way the LEAF could be your primary transportation there.

At $32,780, the LEAF will be considerably cheaper than the $40,000 GM has said in the past is the likely price of the Chevy Volt.

My guess is price of the Volt will be lower than that when GM unveils its official pricing.  Even if it’s not, the Volt has a lot more appeal to me.

The Volt will only go 40 miles in all-electric mode on a full battery charge.  But the Volt will have a gasoline-powered generator to keep charging the batteries after that so you don’t have to worry about running out of juice before you get home.  And 40 miles would be enough for me to stay in all-electric mode many days.

I wish the folks at Nissan well.  But I think their car's going to flop.  I just hope it doesn’t set back the transition to all-electric cars.

I want to own an all-electric car someday.  But it has to be a real car.  For me, that means being able to get as far on a battery charge as I can get on a tank of gas today.  And it means being able to recharge the batteries in minutes, not hours.

One more quibble, this one with the folks marketing the LEAF.  Why are they going to start taking orders on April 20?  The 40th anniversary of Earth Day is two days later.  Do you guys have any idea how much more publicity you would have gotten by taking your first orders on Earth Day 2010?  Sigh.

Link to Nissan LEAF price announcement.