Put a Socket on it: Nissan Celebrates Leaf's First Birthday with an Ad

It's been about 365 days or a year since Nissan launched its new pure-electric Leaf onto the market and to celebrate the event, the Japanese company released a commercial featuring household electric-sockets singing the traditional 'happy birthday song'.

Over the course of a year, Nissan says it has sold more than 19,000 Leaf hatchbacks worldwide. In the U.S., sales of the all-electric model have totaled 8,720 units through the end of November. Just this week, Nissan announced that it is going to expand the availability of the Leaf to seven more states starting from spring of 2012.

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Nissan Expands Availability of Leaf EV to 7 More States Across America

On the heels of the one-year anniversary of the first delivery of the Leaf on December 11, Nissan announced on Tuesday that it is expanding the availability of its dedicated electric model into new U.S. territories. Read more »

Nissan Leaf Scores a Hat-Trick by Winning Japanese Car of the Year Award

The Leaf is proving to be not only a commercial hit for Nissan, having sold 20,000 units already this year, but a collector of automotive awards as well.

The latest trophy won by the Leaf is the "Car of the Year Japan 2011-2012", which was announced at the 42nd Tokyo Motor Show. Nissan’s all-electric model has also won the World and European Car of the Year awards this year.

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NISMO Adds Some Zing to Nissan Leaf EV with New Concept at Tokyo Motor Show

This has been a rough year for Japanese automakers but if there's one company from the Land of the Rising Sun that's showing a lot of potential, that would be Nissan - be that with its quirky looking Juke crossover, the pure electric Leaf or the tarmac-shredding GT-R sports car.

Perhaps the most important news coming from Nissan at the Tokyo Motor Show is the company's decision to heavily invest in its performance arm NISMO and expand its offerings to include more focused editions of Nissan's mainstream models.

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Top Gear Producer Praises Electric Car Test Spoof [Video]

The world’s most famous car show, BBC’s Top Gear, has had more than its fair share of controversies, mainly due to the sardonic comments of host Jeremy Clarkson.

Never mind the “greens”, Jeremy’s current favorite car is the Mercedes-Benz SLS. He is a petrolhead and apparently, not too fond of electric vehicles. Especially since the Tesla Roadster incident which led to the two parties becoming engaged in a legal battle.

Apart from being a car show, though, Top Gear is also about entertainment. This prompted two fans of the show to record a spoof video demonstrating an “eco race” between two zero emission vehicles: a “Nissan Leaf” and a “Peugeot iOn”.

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Nissan to Claim Two Oddball Speed Records at Goodwood Festival

Without doubt, one of the highlights of this year’s edition of the famous Goodwood hill climb will be Nissan’s participation. And no, we’re not talking about the Sumo Power GT team’s GT1 race-winning Nissan GT-R, but for the Juke small crossover and the Leaf EV.

You see, the Japanese company has set its sights on claiming two special records at the Goodwood Festival of Speed that takes place in Britain on 1-3 July with the aforementioned models.

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Ghosn Says Nissan will Sell Record Number of Leaf EVs in the US this June

The battle for sales supremacy in the eco-friendly segment between Nissan’s pure electric Leaf and GM’s extended range Chevrolet Volt is really heating up lately, with the two models separated by only 17 cars in U.S. sales figures so far this year.

And while GM is betting on the introduction of a slightly lower priced base model as well as the extended availability of the Volt in all 50 states to win this battle, Nissan is counting on increasing output to ease customer delays after production was disrupted by the Japan’s earthquake and tsunami on March 11.

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Nissan Leaf vs Chevrolet Volt: Who will Win the Sales Battle?

Even though the new Nissan Leaf and the Chevrolet Volt are two very different cars when it comes to details, they do have a common denominator: they are the most technologically advanced eco-friendly vehicles that are mass-produced and readily available in the U.S. market. That said, it’s interesting to see how they’re doing in sales this year.

Believe it or not, it’s a fierce neck-to-neck sales battle so far in 2011 with only 17 cars separating the Leaf from the Volt. Nissan has delivered 2,184 examples of the pure-electric Leaf from January to the end of May, while GM has sold 2,167 units of Chevrolet’s extended range electric vehicle in the same period.

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Nissan Pays Top Execs Twice as Much as Toyota and Honda

Toyota’s executives must be green with envy once they hear the salaries of their counterparts in Nissan. That is because, Nissan’s top directors were paid more than twice as much for the fiscal year that ended last March than their equals at Toyota, according to a report from Bloomberg. And this despite the fact that Toyota is Japan’s biggest car manufacturer and Nissan is number two.

In a statement that Nissan issued before its annual meeting on June 29, average salary, including bonuses, for 14 executives was 126 million yen, or $ 1.6 million. In comparison, Toyota paid its 38 directors and auditors an average of about 41 million yen per executive.

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New Nissan Leaf Commercial Mocks the Chevy Volt for Using Gasoline

Electric carmakers are trying hard to promote their products, with the environmentally friendly nature of these vehicles being their most exploited feature in advertising. Nissan is going down the same path with a new campaign for the fully-electric Leaf entitled “Gas Powered Everything”, in which the company mocks the internal combustion engine by imagining a strange world where all appliances run on gas.

The result is a funny commercial in which people have to put up with gas-powered alarm-clocks, microwave ovens, computers and many more appliances. Even the Chevrolet Volt becomes a subject of joke for being a gas-electric hybrid. But we can't help but wonder: isn't Nissan's approach a little hypocritical? It's not like their range includes electric cars alone...

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Nissan Leaf Becomes the first EV to Receive a 5-Star Euro NCAP Rating

After awarding the Mitsubishi i-MiEV with a four-star rating, Euro NCAP, which is the European equivalent of the American IIHS, crash tested its second all-electric model, the Nissan Leaf. The Japanese hatchback achieved a five-star rating, becoming the first electric vehicle to do so. Read more »

Top Gear vs. Electric Cars Part Two: Nissan Leaf Runs of out Electric Juice…

Lately, it seems that pushing an out-of-juice electric car is quickly becoming a trademark of Britain’s popular Top Gear TV series. After the Tesla Motors row, it seems another EV will be featured in the show while being pushed. This time it's the Nissan Leaf, whose batteries ran dry while being driven by Jeremy Clarkson.

Fortunately, one of the many witnesses of the event caught Clarkson and James May trying to find an outlet to plug for the Leaf on camera. The two TV hosts were filming a test drive with the Nissan Leaf and the Peugeot iOn for the next episode of the show. After looking for outlets in the park, the crew eventually plugged the Leaf in at the UK's University of Lincoln.

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