
Nissan unveils world's first mass-market electric car, the Leaf - newacc
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2009/aug/02/nissan-unveils-electric-car-leaf
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web3
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."

You think any man wants to ride around in the Leaf?

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jimmybot
Is this some kind of mis-channeling of PG's last essay?

Did you see the photo of the car? It's not targeted at the Hummer crowd. It's
also being sold in Europe. I'm not saying it's a great name, but I can see the
association between leaf and concern for the environment. And it's a small
car. The name to me seems to go along with its design and purpose.

I would also say names may not matter as much as we think they do, or at least
that it is fluid and malleable over time. I.e., Nissan or Toyota probably
didn't sound all that cool in the 70s or 80s either.

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SwellJoe
_I.e., Nissan or Toyota probably didn't sound all that cool in the 70s or 80s
either._

Speaking of names (and new Nissan models), I just watched the Top Gear
coverage of the GT-R. It performed on par with some of the fastest supercars
in the world (and faster than most of them), and also caused Jeremy Clarkson's
back to give out while he was driving it. Richard Hammond joked about how of
all the cars Clarkson has driven, he was crippled by a Datsun. I thought it
interesting that he chose to use "Datsun" as the derogatory brand for the
joke, rather than Nissan. I wonder if that name change and subsequent brand
recognition loss was a net positive or a net loss, since it meant they could
disassociate from the low end, low performance, and very small, autos of the
Datsun years.

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SwellJoe
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.

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.

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smokinn
I'm in the same situation. I don't want a gas guzzler so I'm waiting around
for the electrics. I might get an electric motorcycle first though since new
car models tend to have problems in their first year so I imagine the first
year of a completely different kind of car is going to be rife with headaches.

Basically it's the same as my phone situation. I don't want an iPhone because
of Apple's management of it. I prefer owning what I've paid for and having
another company tell me what I can and can't do with my own property doesn't
sit well with me. I'm waiting for a viable substitute to be available,
something like the HTC Hero.

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dschoon
For me, the most important sentence was near the end:

"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."

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.

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coryrc
EVs can only charge that fast with a special high-power line or a dump pack.

You can get at most 1440W from a 120V 15A outlet (80% max allowable according
to NEC) or 5760W from 240V 30A. No matter what magical battery technology you
have, you can't charge faster if you don't have a bigger input. You can get
range/hour of charging by dividing the power by the wh/mi; the Nissan is
probably 100-200wh/mi, so 7-14mi/hr from 120 or 28-56mi/hr from 240V

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pkulak
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.

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gojomo
Wow, the Leaf has a strong 'face' with a smirk:

[http://www.blogcdn.com/www.autoblog.com/media/2009/08/nissan...](http://www.blogcdn.com/www.autoblog.com/media/2009/08/nissan-
leaf_hi_003.jpg)

It's almost like one of the Pixar 'Cars' or the characters in the Chevron
commercials from a ways back.

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smhinsey
When I was a real little kid, maybe 8 or 10 or so, my mother took me shopping
for a new car and I distinctly recall bursting into tears at the sight of the
first one she liked because I thought it looked mean. I've always wanted to
hear the inside scoop on whether cars intentionally anthropomorphise so well
or if that was just one of those happy accidents.

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chaosmachine
It's a pretty safe bet that designers take it into consideration, and
intentionally play it up in some situations.

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Timothee
The BMWs, I feel, are a good example of that with a pretty feline look (to me
at least), or gaze maybe.

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DTrejo
I mostly get that feeling from the headlights and front.

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TweedHeads
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.

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.

See? blame BigOil for stomping his boot on the head of progress...

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coryrc
Filling your gas tank is equivalent to ~0.5megawatts; your house is
50kilowatts (usually a 240V 200A service), so we can't use electric cars in
the same way we use gasoline cars. They're only useful for trips around town,
which is what, 90% of miles driven?

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harshavr
"gas tank is equivalent to ~0.5megawatts", just to be more clear, could you
say how many hours of driving are you assuming the gas fill will last, since
your measurement is in terms of power?

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pkulak
I think he's saying that gas gets into a tank at the electricity equivelent
rate of about half a megawatt.

