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Electric dream becomes reality as UK gets first look at the world’s first purpose-built 100% electric family car, Nissan LEAF

 
Against a backdrop of the Government’s 1p tax increase on fuel, Nissan today unveiled LEAF, its new electrical vehicle (EV), to the UK public with a state-of-the-art exhibition designed to show how Britain’s motoring future will be electric. 

Research consultancy, Frost & Sullivan forecasts more than 100,000 sales of EVs in the UK by 2015. It also predicts that the UK will be the biggest market in Europe for electric vehicles with LEAF, the world’s first purpose-built electric family car, tipped by experts as a significant step towards the widespread adoption.

Nissan is expecting to sell out of the first batch of cars which launch in March 2011 but customers can pre-order online now at www.nissan.co.uk/LEAF. More than twenty-five thousand customers in the US and Japan have already reserved their LEAF, including international cycling legend, Lance Armstrong.

“Anytime you talk about technology — if it’s a computer, or if it’s a phone, or if it’s a bicycle — you always talk about ‘next level,’” says Armstrong. 

Next level is the stuff that just blows you away. The LEAF was just really, in my opinion, what I would call next level.”

Now the public will be able to see the car for the first time at the Innovation Station at London’s O2, on Friday 1 October, before it goes on a regional tour of the UK early next year. 

The free exhibition also features driving simulators, a virtual car design programme and interactive games that show visitors of all ages how electric vehicles can change the way people will drive and live in the future.
 
Editor-in-chief of What Car?, Steve Fowler said, “Electric cars will play a huge part in our motoring future – not only because they make sense environmentally, but, as Nissan’s LEAF has proved, they do all the normal things you need your car to do and will put a smile on your face too.

Pure electric vehicles have been talked about for some time, but we’re now reaching a genuine tipping point where they become a credible option for a large number of people.”

Paul Willcox, managing director of Nissan Motor (GB) Ltd, added, “We launched the Innovation Station as a fun and exciting way to showcase our vision for the future and above all, the role that electric vehicles can play in our everyday lives. 

LEAF has already been a huge success in other markets and we expect it to prove a similar hit when it launches in the UK. Today’s 1p hike in fuel tax is just the latest in a long line of reminders that the future of motoring cannot continue to be completely reliant on petrol and diesel.”

All press releases are available from the Nissan UK press website.