A new Leaf: Gulf oil spill was impetus for driver to embrace electric car
The French use the slang term “branché” to describe something as trendy, or of-the-moment; more traditionally, it explains that a device is plugged in.
Ottawa’s Ricardo Borba came home Friday with a new car that fits both definitions: he’s the first commuting consumer in Canada to take delivery of Nissan’s all-electric Leaf.
With neither a gas tank nor an internal combustion engine on board, the Leaf derives all of its power from the same household current that runs the dishwasher. It’s the first fully-electric car available in Canada from a mainstream auto manufacturer.
Borba is one of many commuters amped up about the idea of fossil fuel-free commuting. gucci outlet His light-bulb moment arrived courtesy of the Deepwater Horizon oil rig explosion in 2010, which killed 11 people and dumped almost five million barrels of oil into the Gulf of Mexico.
“I thought to myself how nice it would be to get away from dependence on the oil industry and its environmental impacts,” said Borba, adding that he’s neither an environmentalist nor a car enthusiast. “Getting away from the politics of gas prices was an incentive, also.”
Borba, who traded in a minivan, says he was further convinced when he test drove the Leaf back in May.
“You’d have to buy a luxury car to get one as quiet and smooth, and a sports car to get this kind of acceleration,” he said as he collected his car Friday at Hunt Club Nissan. “It’s one car that does all of those things.”
A brief test drive revealed the car to be very quiet, and quick off the line. The electric motor generates 107 horsepower and 207 pound-feet of torque, while the heavy lithium-ion batteries, mounted under the floor, keep the centre of gravity low and contribute to surprisingly agile handling.
The Leaf’s driving range is about 160 kilometres, according to U.S. Environmental Protection Agency tests simulating real-world use.
Before you get too charged about cutting your commuting costs, consider that the Leaf’s $38,395 starting price would purchase many more substantial vehicles. You must also factor in about $2,000 to have the Nissan-branded home charging dock, with its industry-standard connector, wired into the house’s electrical panel and installed where the car will be parked.
The charging dock in. Borba’s garage will fully fuel the Leaf in less than eight hours; a recharge takes closer to 20 hours when the car is plugged into a standard 110-volt outlet. A higher-voltage charging system, designed for places such as shopping mall parking lots, would charge a spent battery to a maximum of 80 per cent of its capacity in as little as 30 minutes.
However, EV-specific chargers are rare in public places; one of the very few in the Ottawa area is at the Wakefield Mill Resort, which was recently renovated to meet LIED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) standards. Some members of the Electric Vehicle Council of Ottawa (EVCO) have convinced their workplaces to provide access to electricity for daytime charging of their electric vehicles, according to EVCO President Darryl McMahon. Borba says his employer, IBM, has 110-volt outlets for EV charging.
The Leaf’s direct competitors are few, for now. There’s the Chevrolet Volt, dubbed an electric car with extended range, which promises up to 80 km electric range before a gasoline generator comes on line to keep things rolling. It went on sale in early September at an suggested retail price of $41,545. The City of Ottawa has already added a Volt to its fleet; in May, Mayor Jim Watson spoke of having an EV charging station installed at City Hall, but the city couldn’t confirm when that would happen.
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