leaf

Renault announced a sales target of 200,000 electric vehicles by 2015, according to an article in La Tribune. The French automaker will introduce its first electric vehicle--a version of a medium-size family sedan--in Israel and Denmark in 2011, followed by an electric version of New Kangoo based on the ZE Concept car for fleet sales.

While its sales goal forecast sounds high for a technology that hasn't yet reached mass production, the Nissan-Renault alliance partnership, which enables the carmakers to share key electric car components, is poised to meet whatever manufacturing demand exists.

The expanded Nissan plant in Smyrna and new battery manufacturing facility … Read more

Tesla looks like a real car company all of a sudden; lifetime free traffic looking like the norm for GPS; new Pioneer AVIC gets married to Pandora mobile; TV broadcasts in your car have hit a snag; and we roll in our favorite sports sedan: the AMG C63.

• Toyota, Nissan make big moves on electric car factories

• We drive--and love--the Mercedes C63 AMG

• New Pioneer AVIC adds Pandora mobile app

• 85 miles in the Mitsubishi i-Miev

• Magellan Roadmate 3065 GPS worries about commute so you don't have to… Read more

Nissan Motor and alliance partner Renault could market electric vehicles without government incentives within four years as global sales reach 500,000 to 1 million vehicles per year, executives said on Wednesday.

Nissan, which is introducing a mass-market Leaf electric car later this year, needs government incentives to spark initial demand but understands those incentives will not be permanent, Nissan-Renault Chief Executive Carlos Ghosn said.

"You need to jump-start electric cars at a certain level so that we can get scale, and the scale will allow us to reduce costs," Ghosn told reporters after a groundbreaking at a plant in Tennessee … Read more

Nissan broke ground today on a manufacturing facility in Smyrna, Tenn., that will produce lithium ion batteries to power its Leaf zero-emission vehicle. The facility could create up to 1,300 jobs when the plants are operating at full capacity.

The battery plant, one of the largest vehicle battery manufacturing plants in North America at 1.3 million square feet, will be capable of producing 200,000 advanced-technology batteries annually. It will be located adjacent to the vehicle assembly plant that Nissan will retool to accommodate production of Leaf and will be capable of producing 150,000 electric cars annually, … Read more

We drive the Chevy Volt--yep the real one--and the 2011 Kia Sorento (with monkey.) The Nissan Leaf is open to anyone to preorder. Smart airbags may not be so smart. And we'll find out why mobile TV in your car may not be that easy to receive.

• We drive the Chevy Volt

• Smart airbags not so smart if you're wearing your belt

• Nissan Leaf reservations opened up to all

• Mobile TV in cars not exactly a slam dunk (map)… Read more

Last month, Nissan let people who preregistered reserve an order for its all-electric Leaf, and 9,500 future, preregistered Leaf drivers responded.

Now, Nissan's Leaf registration is open to everyone. You can make a refundable $99 reservations at NissanUSA.com or by calling 877-664-2738.

Nissan plans to begin releasing the Leaf to select markets in December, and it plans to increase its availability to other markets in spring 2011 with a full market release in 2012, according to a company press release. Car buyers who have made reservations will be given first dibs, based on how soon they registered, … Read more

According to Nissan, the Leaf will not only be a hit but also a money maker right off the bat. Oprah wants you to abandon your phone while in the car: are you in? A German car you steer with your eyes--watch where you look. We take a ride in the BMW that defies categories--and no, we don't mean the X6!

• According to Nissan, the Leaf will make money right out of the gate

• Oprah hypes up the No Phone Zone--are you in?… Read more

Nissan Motor is on track to book 25,000 U.S. orders for its Leaf electric vehicle by year's end and will be making money on the green car, the carmaker said Thursday.

Nissan has taken 8,000 U.S. reservations for the hatchback, set to go on sale in the United States in December, since it started taking orders on April 20, Mark Perry, Nissan's North America director of product planning and strategy, told Reuters on the sidelines of an industry conference.

"We are on a double-time march" for launch, Perry said. "We are … Read more