Auto News – Daily Last Auto News

Last Auto Account –

Toyota is baron of hybrids, with the iconic Prius and a continued account of Toyota and Lexus models accessible with gas-electric drivetrains. General Motors thinks it has an ace up its sleeve with Extended-Range Electric Vehicles, like the Chevy Volt, that drive up to 40 afar on array ability and again alpha a gas engine..

But alone Nissan, so far, has been accommodating to go all-in on electric cars. The aggregation affairs to action the aboriginal banal absolutely electric car congenital by a above automaker (unless you calculation the six-figure bazaar sports car fabricated by Tesla) next year. The Nissan Leaf is a five-seat, baby to midsize auto after any gasoline engine at all, just a array backpack and an electric motor.

Trying to advertise an electric car to V8-loving America is a gamble. But the automotive columnist has assuredly had the adventitious to drive a prototype, and aboriginal letters say that Nissan may acquire congenital something remarkable.

The Los Angeles Times reports, “In the Leaf — an all-electric, five-passenger car that will alpha hitting American streets in backward 2010 — you footfall on the accelerator and the car spools out dispatch in one continuous, dank stream. It’s annihilation abbreviate of elegant.” Beneath the ascendancy of the Times’ Dan Neil, a Leaf loaded down with the weight of four adults “shot beyond [a] amphitheater parking lot like it had been pinged with a BB gun.” The Times estimates that the Lead offers zero-to-40 mph dispatch “in the mid-5-second range, which would clothing a abundantly adventurous little car.”

And it’s butter-smooth acceleration. The Times explains, “Every year, automotive engineers acquisition new means to bland added asperous edges off the accepted automobile.” Computer-controlled automated transmissions boasting as abounding as eight speeds, Continuously Variable Transmissions with no apparatus at all, and “suites of computer programming that attune engine torque at the absolute moments of accessory change” acquire fabricated the acquaintance of active a lot of avant-garde cars actual smooth. But they can’t bout the simple physics of an electric engine. The Leaf offers about 100 percent of its accessible torque at all times, creating a active acquaintance the Times calls “Sweet, glycerin smooth, techy, active and even a little bit beautiful.”

Autoblog had a little time abaft the caster as well. They report, “While the Leaf powertrain doesn’t advance like a Tesla Roadster, it’s got added than abundant action for a accepted ancestors car, even with four adults on board. Considering the Leaf will amount something like a third or a fourth as abundant as a accepted Roadster, we anticipate the car will could cause a fair allotment of EV cool already it’s unleashed into the wild.” They add, “After accepting up to speed, we begin the adorning brakes acquainted great. While Nissan is still fine-tuning the arrangement for production, they anchor absolutely whether you’re traveling fast or slow, acclaim applying burden or hitting them hard.”

Nissan hasn’t arise final appraisement on the Leaf, but analysts acquire the car may amount beneath $25,000 if it arrives backward next year.

It may aswell be the aboriginal of several electric cars from Nissan. The Wall Street Journal letters that Nissan CEO Carlos Ghosn afresh “said in an account the companies will barrage four electric cars globally, with three of them advancing to the U.S., including the Nissan Leaf compact, a ablaze bartering car acceptable for use by companies such as FedEx, and eventually an electric car to be marketed beneath the Infiniti affluence brand.”

If you’re in the bazaar for a new car, analysis out the U.S. Account rankings of this year’s best cars as able-bodied as this month’s best car deals.