Richard Yarrow’s opinion for www.startrescue.co.uk, providing low cost Short Term European Cover.
Been driving the Nissan Leaf this week which, unless you’ve had your head buried in the sand, you’ll know is the UK’s first affordable electric vehicle (EV) from a volume car maker. It’s the size of a Ford Focus and with a range of 100 miles is aimed at commuters who don’t need to travel too far between plug-ins.
The Leaf is also the reigning European Car of the Year, and I have to say I came away mightily impressed. The key question I wanted answered was this; do you feel you’re in an electric car? The answer is no. I forgot within five minutes of setting off. It behaves just like any other automatic, save for the slight whine you can hear… and the fact you hear nothing when you’re travelling at very slow speeds. Best of all it feels like a ‘proper’ car, not something cobbled together to provide a solution to a problem.
I was also pleased to witness the clear efforts which have been made to address the issue of ‘range anxiety’. That’s the posh name for the question ‘will I run out of juice?’ Always visible is a ‘remaining range’ indicator, plus the touch-screen infotainment system hides a clever map. It shows your current position with concentric rings spreading out to show how far you could get on what’s left in the battery, depending on how you drive it.
And talking of EVs, I saw yesterday’s blog posting on this site about TV programme Top Gear being sued over a film about the Tesla Roadster. Yesterday I read the actual court papers, and what the US car maker is alleging – about fakery to ‘bolster a pre-judged, pre-determined and pre-scripted adverse verdict’ – is serious indeed. The accusations, if proven true, will impact on Top Gear’s very existence on TV. It could spell the beginning of the end.
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