2012 Nissan Leaf SL Video

2012 Nissan Leaf SL Video Transcript

The Nissan Leaf. It's alt, green. It's weird looking. Just like a Prius. But Toyota sells as many Pri in a day as these guys in a month. What gifts? Let's drive the 2012 Nissan Leaf SL and check the tech. But now a Leaf looks like a leaf for several reasons. One is packaging. They wanted this car to feel roomy inside and it definitely does. So it's kind of big in proportions. Secondly, aerodynamics define a lot of what see here and then you've got this very unusual a headlight set up in the front that's quite signature, very high on the fenders. And these are LED lights standard by the way. These are lot less of the electric energy. It's so precious in this car. LED headlights are still a real rarity in the industry. Let's get inside. The Nissan Leaf don't come stripped. They're positioning this car as a premium, not just alternative vehicle. As a result, they've all got this seven inch, very nicely done color LCD and what's interesting about it is it's kind of unique to the Leaf. This is not really much at all. Your media sources are AM, FM, satellite radio. No HD radio interestingly enough. Under the CD AUX button, you're going to find Bluetooth streaming, auxiliary jack, USB, iPod is also with disc slot for CDs. And did you see this goofy looking thing, car wings? What the hell is that? Well, that is the connected services platform between your Smartphone in this vehicle. With the approximately, you can check the car's charge status, tell it when and how to charge like in terms of peak and off peak and also set the climate control system to get going before you get in the car on hot and cold days. Remember, there's no engine to start, so it can just start heating or cooling cabin only. The shifter control down here is an oddball of course. It's an oddball powertrain so it should be different. You kind of sly and roll it over for reverse. You get your camera right there, which is pretty conventional. You've got trajectory, but nothing too unusual. Under the maps, you do have traffic and weather provided by your satellite radio hookup and this is very much Nissan stuff on this particular screen, kind of crunchy, not too attractive. There's a little button down here. What does that say? Zero emissions with a little leaf logo on it. When you hit that, you get a bunch of screens that are unique to this vehicle, this kind of vehicle, getting navigation, energy consumption, battery status all kind of woven into one. This is cutting your SAC bomber map where you can see how far you can go on a charge, how far you might go on a charge and where the nearest charging stations are to where you are now. Now the fun continues over here on the main instrument panel, which is bizarre looking thing full of brightly colored peacock feathers of LCD video. On the left is your charge, on your right is your range. Across the top, it looks like an Audi logo gone nuts, tons of rings and that gives you an idea of your green driving mode. And this eyebrow display on the top gives you basics like time and speedometer, but also shows you another little eco gauge on the left. We'll check out later. I think it grows trees or something if you drive gently. In the front of a leaf, there's no engine, there's a motor and you can't even see the motor. The motor is down low at the front wheel area. What you're seeing primarily are control modules and inverters that take the battery power and send them to the motor. Here are the numbers. That motor is an 80-kilowatt unit powered by 48 separate lithium ion batteries like what's in your laptop with a total of 24-kilowatt hours on storage capacity, 107 horsepower and 207, foot pounds of torque. You see these are torque machines. It's a 3400-pound car to 60 in about seven seconds while delivering 10692 MPGE. Who cares about that? All you wanna know is how long will it take to charge and at what point will it strand me. It will take you seven hours for a full charge from nearly dead if you have a 240 volt circuit, double that time for your standard household outlet or if you can find what they call a level 3 charger 480 volts, you can do that charge in about 30 minutes, but that charger connection on the car is optional by the way. Now range is a funny word. Click on that on the Nissan Leaf site and you don't get a number. You get this convoluted looking thing, this graphic that makes no sense. Well, if you poke at for a minute, it tells you you get 68 to 132 miles of range on a full charge depending on terrain conditions, how you drive, even the weather. Now much is made about the solar panels in this and some other electric cars, but this little guy by the way, which is optional doesn't do a whole hell of a lot. It helps trickle charge the accessory battery, you know, the brick like you have in your car. It doesn't charge the propulsion batteries. But by helping out on the little battery, it lets the car focus on recharging its own big batteries with regeneration. Look, make no mistake about it. Driving the Nissan Leaf is fun. It's torque, totally responsive. It's an electric car. This one's particularly well dialed in. I've always thought that very smooth. The ride quality is nice. It's not sloppy and it's also not uptight or tense. Top speed on this car by the way is 90 miles an hour. It's actually very low for cars today, not that you care. But if you're in Texas driving on that 85-mile an hour freeway, I guess you kind of might peed it out, running up a top in, but a car like this is so smooth and quiet. You'd hardly know how faster going. There's no commotion. That's attendant with a given speed after you used to that. Finally, there's this idea of cost to drive like I'm doing right now. This car is estimated by the EPA that costs I think 600 dollars a year in energy charges. Compare that with a Prius at about a thousand for more than a grand I think a Honda Civic at 17100 a year. So, there are real savings to be earned driving one of this. It's one of the facts that you take into account when you consider its price, which will get you in a moment and decide if it's really a good deal or not. Pricing a Leaf is that one simple and treacherous. It starts off a tick above 36 for the base car, then add about 2000 to go to this SL trim level which is techier. That's more CNET style. So, now we're a little bit over 38. But then come the various tax questions. Then there are all those tax credits. The feds are currently doing 7500 bucks for one of these. Here in California another 2500 available, but your state could be wildly different from that or have no incentive at all. And those by the way are tax credits. They're not checks anybody sends you so you've got to make surely apply on your particular tax status. In all, when you priced at a car like this, it's different. You've got to look at the price of the car the way the rebates and credits factor in. And look at the way you're gonna be able to recoup the cost of its challenges in the way you drive and the cost of energy.

2012 Nissan Leaf SL Prices

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Store	Certified rating	Inventory	Price
Manufacturer Suggested Retail Price From Edmunds.com	Rate this store See store profile	Not in stock	$37,250.00
Manufacturer Suggested Retail Price From Edmunds.com	Rate this store See store profile	Not in stock	$37,250.00