Nissan LEAF drivers are clocking up a huge amount of all electric miles as they near the landmark achievement of surpassing 1 billion kilometres. Nissan has created a series of animated stories to celebrate the race to 1 billion electric km featuring owners.
The story of Roberto, from Valladolid, is particularly interesting as he drives more distance in his LEAF than most, since he is a taxi driver. As the first taxi driver in Spain to buy a Nissan LEAF Roberto reckons on having saved 75% in running costs over a conventional petrol or diesel vehicle. He said:
“As long as my car is my business, my car will be a Nissan LEAF. The LEAF makes perfect sense. It’s relaxing to drive and it’s such a smooth ride that my clients love it too.”
Roberto’s experience is contrary to some earlier testing in Osaka, Japan, of Nissan LEAFs used as taxis where some individuals found early problems with battery degradation after less than two years, to the point maximum range was almost halved and rapid charges increased from 15 to 40 minutes. However, those circumstances were during early testing and largely attributed to cell management software which is upgradable and of course the purpose of the trials was to ascertain the LEAFs capabilities both good and bad.
Following Roberto’s story are other LEAF owners Pascal di Stefano from Aix-en-Provence and Vito Mondelli from Bari in Italy (who’s animated video short is shown above). Pascal said that he originally bought the LEAF as a second car but now uses it for the majority of journeys.
Vito Mondelli has been impressed with the range of his car when skeptical friends said he would never make a destination 100km away. Proving them wrong was fulfilling for Vito, emphasising range anxiety as a state of mind rather than a real world problem.
Further to these three stories, Nissan will reveal three more including the proud first ever owner of a Nissan LEAF in Italy, Laura Farina, Sue Terry and Darren Golder – both from the UK.
As to the question of when the billion kilometre mark will be surpassed, Nissan estimates by January 2015 but adds that rising sales and quick charging may bring the date earlier. For those wondering how the distance is known, it is thanks to Nissan’s CarWings telemetry which is an accurate log of total distance covered by every LEAF since first launch in 2010.
To view the other videos in the series, head to: http://experience.nissan.co.uk/leaf-billion-km-racing
Source; Nissan
