Nissan's Leaf electric car coming to China soon

Shanghai, August 4 (Gasgoo.com) Nissan's Leaf electric car will come to the Chinese market early next year and start its trail run, as an official car, in Wuhan, Hebei province, China, said Hashimoto Tai Zhao, Managing Director of Nissan (China) Investment Co., Ltd. 

Nissan has always attached great importance to the development of new energy vehicles and maintained its leading position in lithium-ion battery research and development. Nissan Leaf, powered by a stack of laminated compact lithium-ion batteries, is able to travel over 100 miles (160 kilometers) on a full charge, while its electric motor delivers 80kW/280Nm.

In additon, the Leaf e-car can be charged up to 80 percent of its full capacity in just under 30 minutes with a quick charger. Charging at home through a 220V outlet is estimated to take approximately eight hours.

In March this year, Renault-Nissan alliance signed an agreement with the Wuhan government for a pilot program under which the former will offer the latter 25 electric cars for test run, while the latter will establish 250 electric-vehicle charging stations and 2 fast charging devices in the city to promote the Leaf cars in China jointly.

As the world's leading all-electric car, the Leaf e-car will be available in Japan, U.S. and European at the end of this year, and be launched globally in 2012. At the end of June, The Japanese automaker has received 23,000 orders for its first electric car. Nissan plans to boost sales of its pure electric cars to 250,000 units globally by 2013.