KGUN 9 On Your Side, Tucson News, Weather & SportsTucson gets taste of all-electric car
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You may think you've gone green with your hybrid car but you can go greener still.
Soon you can buy a comfortable car that burns no gas or diesel at all.
This car can help you roll through life without gas, pollution and with almost no noise.
It's a test version of the Nissan Leaf. It's all electric but no glorified golf cart.
When you hit the----well, you can't call it gas--- there's pretty good power.
In a short drive KGUN's Craig Smith tested the acceleration and said, "I could probably be comfortable merging with something like that."
The cars will look like this when you can buy them in about a year. The wait's for time to install enough charging stations around town. At home you could charge over night on the sort of 220 volt outlet you might use for a washing machine. Tucson Electric figures the electricity would cost maybe a third of what you'd pay to feed a high mileage gas burner.
Nissan says the Leaf will go up to 90 miles an hour and average about a hundred miles on a charge.
That's almost enough to get you to Phoenix but the Leaf is meant for in-town trips.
Nissan will sell the Leaf through regular dealers but the company won't quote a price yet---other than to say it should cost about as much as a conventional sedan with similar features.
Tracy Woodard of Nissan North America says, "The average MSRP right now in retail for a vehicle is 29 thousand dollars, so somewhere in that range."
And Nissan thinks at least a thousand Tucsonans will want to drive past the gas pumps in something like this.
The Pima Association of Governments lobbied Nissan to make Tucson a test market. Tucson's green reputation helped seal the deal.
