Revenge of the Electric Car

Photo by Antuan Goodwin, from the CNET Article: Test-driving the Nissan EV-02 electric car

I got invited to go to Dodger Stadium this afternoon to test drive the Nissan EV. This wasn’t the final car, but the finished drivetrain in a Nissan Cube. I was assured it would be very close to the actual feel of the car though, and given the similarity of the Cube in weight to the final EV (the Cube was about 200 lbs heavier I was told), the ride should be comparable.

No mistaking it, this is a test car.

I was very impressed with the ride. The acceleration was significantly better than my RAV, no doubt due to the Li-Ion battery pack weighing about 400-500 lbs less than the Toyota’s NiMH pack. That’s 4 adults worth of mass, and as anyone who drives EVs will tell you, weight is something to be avoided. This is the same with gas cars, too, but so much energy is wasted with internal combustion that most people don’t care about the loss from extra weight.

They had a test run of about half a mile set up in the vast parking lot around the stadium, enough so that I could punch it a few times to test the acceleration, but I didn’t get to take it up to anything near the top speed. For performance, I’d give it a strong B+.  I suspect the sedan body will enable a lower center of gravity, and if it’s 200 lbs lighter, it’ll have even more punch.

Mark Perry presented an informative powerpoint on the car, mostly general information, and not too much that I didn’t already get from the breakfast meeting of a month ago. However, the price range was news. They are expecting this car to sell for $25K-$33K before tax incentives. This makes the Nissan EV very affordable for most people. The federal tax credit is $7,500, and here in California, we’ll probably get another $5,000 off state taxes. Even at the high end of the price range, this means the car will sell for about $20K, much less if you start from the low end of the range.

Several other states are considering additional tax credits : Texas, Florida, Oregon and Washington, to name a few.

The first cars will be available next fall, about the time of the Chevy Volt debut. They intend for the majority of the Nissans to go to fleets initially, but they are certain some will be sold to private buyers in certain markets (Tennessee, Sonoma County, CA, the Bay Area, San Diego, LA and Oregon). The choice of these locations has to do with their roll out of a charging infrastructure.

I was told there is a good chance the actual car will be available to see fairly soon. Stay tuned…