Nissan LEAF Electric Car on the Streets of San Francisco by 2010
San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom today announced that Nissan would be bringing its all-electric LEAF, to the Bay Area market in 2010. Speaking on behalf of the Bay Area Electric Vehicle (EV) Corridor program, Newsom said Nissan will work with San Francisco and the Bay Area to promote and build-out an EV charging infrastructure, including development of a streamlined process for customer installation of charging equipment in their homes.
“Nissan is committed to the San Francisco market and is looking forward to working with the city and others in the partnership to make zero emissions a reality throughout the Bay Area,” said Brian Carolin, senior vice president, sales and marketing for Nissan North America. Piquing the interest of anyone in the Bay Area who is a little EV-curious, Carolin added: “In one year, Nissan LEAF zero-emission vehicles will be driving on the streets of San Francisco.”
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“This collaboration stems from Nissan’s recognition of the aggressive work we are doing to make the San Francisco Bay Area the nation’s EV capital,” said Mayor Newsom in a statement. “We are making every effort to have the infrastructure ready when the Nissan LEAF arrives, and we are extremely pleased to have Nissan as a collaborative partner in making that happen.”
In February, Newsom brought EV-charging stations to San Francisco City Hall as part of the Bay Area EV Corridor program, a public-private alliance that includes the nine Bay Area counties, Oakland, San Jose, electric utility PG&E and several corporate partners working towards developing an EV market and infrastructure.
Like Newsom, San Jose Mayor Chuck Reed has emphasized clean tech and transportation as a central element of his work as mayor. Reed welcomed today’s announcement, saying: “This effort to make the Bay Area EV-ready shows the innovation that can happen when the public and private sectors work together. Our work has great potential to both protect the environment and create clean tech jobs.”
San Francisco and the Bay Area will now be the ninth market region Nissan plans on launching the LEAF in the United States. Part of the strategy for the LEAF will be to sell the cars only where there is the EV charging infrastructure to support it. Other cities/regions currently planned for project launches are Los Angeles, Portland/Oregon, Seattle and Phoenix/Tucson in the west; Tennessee, Houston, Raleigh and Washington, D. C. in the east. The push to make the Bay Area EV-ready puts the west coast well on its way to developing an EV infrastructure that could one day support a Los Angeles to Seattle journey in an electric car.
However, one question is that while some utilities (and the state and federal regulations that guide them) are already planning for an EV future by bolstering their grids, incentivizing cost structures and researching smart meters and grids, other utilities are much further behind. And until those other utilities “catch up” there will be pockets of fast-charging stations in the regions that have the money and political will to bring them there.
Photo: Timothy B. Hurst/Creative Commons 2.0. Follow Tim on twitter @ecopolitologist
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December 8th, 2009 at 7:38 am
Battery cars with maximum 100-mile driving range will not be acceptable to mainstream consumers
http://www.h2carblog.com/?p=68
Greg Blencoe
Chief Executive Officer
Hydrogen Discoveries, Inc.
“Hydrogen Car Revolution” blog
December 8th, 2009 at 12:41 pm
I expect plenty of early adopters who don’t need anything near 100 mile daily range from first gen BEVs will be there to buy these as fast they roll out.
The mainstream can come years later as the ranges get better.
December 8th, 2009 at 1:39 pm
Greg,
I do not believe there is a “Hydrogen Car Revolution”.
There is no hydrogen fueling infrastructure.
There are no affordable hydrogen powered vehicles.
Battery electric vehicles are approximately four times more efficient than hydrogen powered cars and battery electric vehicles can be charge anywhere there is electric power.
I have owned and driven a battery electric vehicle for over 2 years and 20,000 miles, 0 to 60 in 7 seconds and a range of 120 miles.
I have shown my vehicle to hundreds of people and the vast majority of those people tell me they are impressed with the technology and they would buy one if it were available at a dealership.
This is the “Battery Electric Vehicle Revolution”.
December 9th, 2009 at 9:53 pm
100 mile range issue will be solved by partnerships that build out supporting charging grids in markets like California that have the demand as well as attractive political and business climates.
December 15th, 2009 at 6:06 pm
Yeh Greg has got something going on that he isn’t revealing, like maybe a paycheck from the oil companies.
He simply won’t accept the scientific comparison of EVs vs HFCVs with the 3x advantage going to EVs. No sirree, his blog fully covers all the talking points the EV crowd has and has an answer for all the points.
I would urge all EV supporters to spend a few minutes looking over his site to try and fathom it out, its worth a chuckle to see what the oil companies might have to say if they could use their own words. First of all he thinks the oil companies are hoping the EVs do really well but then flop because of the revolt against limited miles and that the people will realize the true replacement for gasoline is of course hydrogen. Praise be to hydrocarbon companies!
Sure there are improvements in fuel cells too, but even if the FC car was the same price as a gasoline car (like in 50 years perhaps), it would still suck in the 3x energy efficiency disadvantage. Of course FCs are nowhere near where he is projecting.
The really funny thing is that the HFCV is really just an EV with a different electrical energy source. So if FCs could be made real cheap, and if their efficiency was closer to that of a Li ion battery 95% and if hydrogen could be made without CO2 emissions and if it could be stored without leaking, and if it didn’t stink of oil behind it, it might just be a winner.
Now the folks researching batteries seem to have lots of connections to the electronics industry that gives us continuous improvements every few years. On the other hand the hydrogen guys are with Mr Oil. I know which guys I’d rather buy from.
All I can say to the folks in SF, I envy you, here in New England we have to wait another year after CA for the charging stations to roll out east while Nissan is looking at temp effects on the cells, oh well.
January 2nd, 2010 at 2:57 am
I think the most important part of it all is that EV’s help save the environment.If that is what it takes to stop global warming or at least slow it down, then I welcome EV’s with open arms.Hope this will shake down the oil sheiks and maybe they could lower their oil prices for once!!!