The Leaf

It's football season. I HATE football. I don't understand the game, and it's because I don't care. For four years in High School I went to every single game, at home and away, and it STILL looks like people running around on a field to me. PLEASE don't comment here explaining the rules of the game. As I said, I don't care. That said, I was watching football the other night (this means that my husband is watching football and I'm either folding laundry, reading a book or staring blankly at the screen) and a commercial for the new Nissan Leaf came on. Now THIS I found interesting! It's a 100% electric car. So I immediately grabbed the iPad to check it out. (This of course gave me something to do now that stupid football was back on the screen). The bad news is that EVERYONE else also grabbed their iPads and the site was SUPER slow, but I did manage to check it out a little. So it's 100% electric with 0 tailpipe emission (this I found interesting, so other emissions then??) My first question was price, which is MSRP $35,200, but they say with federal tax credits it's closer to $27,700. It's going to be released in late summer but only in select states (not Ohio). There's a short little video clip that explains how to get one. First you order one, then you have someone from Nissan come to your house to do a consultation for a docking station ($99 assessment fee), then they install the docking station (estimated cost $2000) then you bring home your Leaf. It is estimated that it will take only $2.75 to charge the Leaf from empty to full, and it will take about 7 hrs to charge from empty at 220/240V. The thinking is that it most people will charge their car overnight. They say they are working on having public docking stations since you can only go about 100 miles per charge. So NSG for trips. (Everyone knows NSG is not so good, right? Is that just something my mom made up for recipes in her cookbooks??)

I'm really excited to see how this sells. I like the idea of the electric car. It definitely saves fossil fuels, but how are we getting our electricity? If it's from solar or wind power, great, but if it's from fossil fuel...I guess it's still better than putting gas directly into your car. It's all about the baby steps! Good for you Nissan! Thanks for giving me something to occupy my time during that dumb football game!