Nissan LEAF now easier than ever to own

NISSAN is aiming to make ownership of its electric cars a little less shocking with a series of new incentives.

Anyone looking to buy its zero-emissions LEAF hatchback can now recharge their car for free at any of its dealerships, borrow a petrol or diesel car for up to a fortnight if they need one, and get free a European breakdown and recovery package if they get into trouble.

Jim Wright,  Nissan Motor GB's managing director, said: "By making firm promises across five key areas we are tackling head on some of the questions we hear from potential customers when considering electric cars for the first time. These commitments deliver unprecedented levels of support to customers and make the LEAF a practical, desirable and affordable reality for many more motorists.

"The pledge to offer LEAF owners a free diesel or petrol Nissan for up to 14 days a year is particularly revolutionary. It means LEAF drivers can enjoy the many benefits of LEAF ownership, such as running costs of just two pence per mile, on their normal daily commute and then, when they’re going on holiday or have a longer trip to make, borrow a car that’s more appropriate to their journey."

The scheme, called the Nissan CARE-EV Leaf Customer Commitment Scheme, is aimed at helping eco-conscious motorists overcome the uncertainties they face when buying an electric car for the first time.

Nissan has sold the LEAF here since 2011, and earlier this year started building the zero-emissions hatchback at its UK plant in Sunderland.

 

The offer is available at all 205 of Nissan’s dealerships across the UK.

Read more »

Electric shock for Renault over battery leasing quarrel

SUPPOSE for a moment, you’re on the verge of buying a secondhand Clio. It comes stashed with service history, it’s in great condition and mileage-wise it’s still got plenty of life left in it, but as you settle on the price it seems there’s a snag.

“Oh, you want the engine as well, sir?” the salesman enquires politely. “Sorry, you have to pay extra for that.”

Understandably, you’d be pretty miffed if you had to pay extra to have the privilege of having something to propel your pride and joy, and that’s exactly why used car gurus CAP have had a bit of a falling out with Renault lately. They’re refusing to give secondhand values for the French firm’s range of electric vehicles… …because anyone who buys one has to lease the batteries separately.

Martin Ward, CAP’s manufacturer relationship manager, said: “We have every confidence in the quality and reliability of the Renault Zoe. We have seen it, driven it, lived with it and its 90 mile range means it definitely has a place in fleets for shorter range driving purposes.

“But until Renault removes the unnecessary layer of complexity caused by treating the battery as a separate entity to the car CAP will be unable to forecast its used values so fleets can work out competitive lease rates. In our opinion it is now time for Renault to give some great electric vehicles they have worked hard to develop and refine a real chance in the company car market by abandoning its ‘battery not included’ policy.”

I’ve driven by far the quirkiest of Renault’s electric offerings, the two-seater Twizy, and stand by my original verdict that it’s brilliant. In fact, I loved it so much that – and I don’t do this often – seriously thought about buying one as a fun, frugal commuter car to go to work in, but it was the very fact you have to lease the batteries separately that put me off. I own a mobile phone, a tablet, and an MP3 player which all have batteries which I don’t have to lease. 

Why should it be any different with a battery-powered car?

Read more »

Detroit Electric invites you to play Guess the Sports Car

NORMALLY Life On Cars doesn't do teaser shots - annoying images of cars almost completely hidden from view - but on this occasion it's worth making an exception.

This is the as-yet-unnamed sports car from Detroit Electric, a name that's been plucked from America's automotive back catalogue after an absence of over 70 years in order to create a trendy two-seater which will be made at a Michigan factory and officially launched next month at the Shanghai Motor Show.

Don Graunstadt, the company's chief executive, said: "We are proud to become the fourth car manufacturer born out of Detroit, and the first to manufacture a pure electric sports car from Michigan.

"We are committed to doing our part for this great revival of Detroit through innovation, entrepreneurship and determination – what we like to call ‘Detroit 2.0’.  Our investors and management team are thankful to the State of Michigan for the help provided in allowing Detroit Electric to carry on the legacy that began in Michigan so many years ago."

So what makes this otherwise obscure teaser shot so interesting? Well, very occasionally I'll get asked to play Guess the Sports Car - a largely Facebook-based game which involves successfully identifying the more obscure bits of Britain's roadster heritage - and for that reason my inner anorak almost immediately spotted a few familiar styling cues on Detroit Electric's offering.

Could this two-seater's "bold styling, outstanding performance, and exhilarating handling characteristics" be a bit British, by any chance? The LED lights and the minimalist door mirrors, I'm almost certain, are shared by a certain sports car I drove two years ago.

You might also like to know that one of Detroit Electric's backers is a chap called Albert Lam, whose CV includes a stint as the CEO of a car company and engineering group based in the Norfolk countryside. A company which already has a lot of experience of making electric sports cars closely based on its own models, like the Tesla Roadster and the Dodge EV.

Here's the wager, then. I'll eat my own shoes if the Detroit Electric isn't related, in some way or other, to the Lotus Elise...

Read more »

Government gives electric cars a £37m boost

ELECTRIC cars might become a bit more appealing if a multi-million pound Government scheme to make them easier to charge proves a success.

It's fair to say that electric cars haven't exactly set the British sales charts alight but the Department for Transport said it will invest £37 million scheme to invest in a network of charging points for plug-in electric vehicles, which should make owning one an easier prospect for eco-conscious drivers.

Patrick McLoughlin, the Transport Secretary, said: "This investment underlines the Government’s commitment to making sure that the UK is a world leader in the electric car industry.

"Plug-in vehicles can help the consumer by offering a good driving experience and low running costs. They can help the environment by cutting pollution. And most importantly of all, they can help the British economy by creating skilled manufacturing jobs in a market that is bound to get bigger."

The investment will include grants for private residents who wish to install their own charging points, funding for local authorities to set up charging points, and additional money available for government agencies and railway stations to set up charging areas.

An £11m slice of that funding is available for local authorities to invest in their own electric car charging points, and while Lancashire County Council is yet to respond to Life On Cars' enquiries Sefton Council has said it is looking into the scheme.

A spokesman for Sefton Council said: "As this has only just been announced we will obviously have to look at the finer details of the scheme and the money available.

"We already have a fleet of four electric trucks which are used to supplement cleansing activities right across the borough. These are charged at three locations in Sefton and a further three vehicles are currently on order."

Among the supporters of the investment is Nissan, who won the European Car of the Year award in 2011 with their LEAF electric car.

John Martin, Nissan’s Senior Vice President for Manufacturing in Europe, said: ”We are at a crossroads in personal mobility. Nissan is proudly pioneering zero emission technology through our UK operations and we are delighted that the UK Government is showing it shares our commitment to the transport of the future.

“Electric vehicles become a way of life if the charging infrastructure is in place and Governments are committed to helping drivers to make the switch. We know this from the experiences of Nissan LEAF drivers in countries like Norway where a network of charge points is already in place.”

Read more »

My brilliant idea to get Britain's electric cars back on track

I MIGHT have had a few too many festive tipples when I cracked Britain's electric car conumdrum.


Vehicles which run on volts alone are a jolly good idea but for a few drawbacks which stop them from being practical everyday machines for the moment; they are, for starters, quite expensive, especially when you consider for the price of being an eco activist in a Nissan LEAF you could've got yourself a Range Rover Evoque. Not that I'd mind the price, however, if I could use an electric car to get somewhere meaningful, which - I'm sorry, electric car purveyors of Britain - you can't.

Anyone who read Autocar's hilarious piece on the issue last week will have learned the Leaf can only do Liverpool to London slightly quicker than a horse and carriage can, thanks to the former's insistence on lengthy charge ups every 90 miles or. All this when a certain other electric vehicle, championed by Richard Branson, can do the trip in a shade over two hours.

That's when it hit me - I know what we need to do to make electric cars in this country at least vaguely viable for people who do long distances. What we need, I realised as I saw the potential through the bottom of a pint glass, is to bring MotoRail back.

Bear with me on this one. The idea is you get in your ‘leccy car, drive it to your nearest big train station - which, if you live in the area covered by the Champion, is either Preston or Liverpool Lime Street - and park it on the carriages of a MotoRail train resurrected from the British Rail history books. Said rail carriages have been specially adapted so they've got electric car charging points on them, meaning you can let the train chug its way across the country while your LEAF/Twizy/whatever restocks its batteries. A few gearchange-free hours and a cup of coffee you later you unload your car in Aberdeen, which is fully charged and at your destination three times faster than it would've taken by road alone. Result!

Obviously, such an idea will involve a lot of George Osborne's money and a lot of logistical hard work - in this instance, the work involved in reinstating Britain's entire MotoRail network, from Penzance to Fort William, and equipping it for the electric car age. But it's got to better than Top Gear's solution (running electrified chicken wire, dodgem car style, over the every motorway and trunk road in the country) and Autocar's offering (allowing the slower pace of electric cars to usher in a more genteel motoring age of slow progress and stopping at every other roadside in, an idea already tried not entirely successfully in the 1920s). What we want is MotoRail back. Go on, you know it makes sense!

Normal Life On Cars service will resume next week, now the Christmas break is out of the way and the hangover's cleared up.

Read more »

Fire up the... Vauxhall Ampera

THIS eco-warrior has an electric motor. It also packs a good old fashioned petrol engine. So the new Ampera's a hybrid, right?

Not quite, Vauxhall reckon. I'll apologise for getting so blatantly and boringly technical this soon into a review but it's important you know why the Ampera, this year's European Car of the Year, does what it does. A hybrid like, say, a Toyota Prius or a Honda Insight, is powered by a petrol engine which uses electric energy to help it run more efficiently.

The Vauxhall's contender (and its sister car, the Chevrolet Volt) is one you'll appreciate if you're a train buff - it's an electric vehicle which uses a petrol engine not to power its wheels, but to recharge its batteries. It is, in trainspotter speak, a petrol-electric. Not nodded off yet, then?

The upshot of all that electric wizardry is that the Ampera can do something no other electric car can. It can run on amps alone for 35 miles - more, Vauxhall reckons, than most of us regularly commute - so you can happily pop to the shops in it during the week not burning any fuel at all, plug it into the mains when you get back and sit back, smiling smugly because you're helping to mend the holes in the ozone layer. The clever bit, though, is that once you get past that it'll call on Esso's finest to keep going, meaning the 1.4 litre engine normally sat on the sub's bench is able to get you to Aunt Mabel's house in Aberdeen just like any other car could. Try doing that in your Nissan LEAF.

Normally, it's the price that unravels it all but while at £30,000 the Ampera costs about the same as the high end versions of Vauxhall's own Insignia it's the same sort of car - a big, generously equipped saloon, even if it's got a dashboard straight out of the 1980s. It's even nice to drive in a comfy, cosseting sort of way, with plenty of room upfront and in the back.

The Ampera isn't an electric car in the truest sense of the word but instead manages to be something much better; an eco-friendly express that makes sense. It's an environmentalist statement disguised as a really good car.

Read more »