Not so very long after Chevy announced that its hybrid Volts had driven over one billion miles, Nissan came out with a similar notice, but it is about one billion kilometers driven by LEAFs. (Approximately 180 million kilograms of CO₂ emissions were not generated by driving the electric LEAFs, compared to gas-powered cars.)
One billion miles is much farther than one billion kilometers, of course, but the number of miles driven in EV mode for the Volts wasn’t that different from the number of miles (when converted) for the all-electric Nissan LEAFs.
The Volts were driven about 629 million miles in all-electric mode and the LEAFs about 621 million miles. Together that is about 1.25 billion miles of driving on electricity!
Of course, the LEAF has no gasoline engine or tank so it would be considered greener. Some of the electricity used to charge the LEAFs did probably come from clean sources such as solar power, and some of it came from fossil fuels such as coal. But the same is true for the Volt.
At least with the LEAFs there are no tailpipe emissions, so there is no air pollution generated by them on the roads.
The milestones achieved both by the Chevy Volt and Nissan LEAF are important because they are still relatively new vehicles. When they were first made available to the public, there was naturally some skepticism, but the number of miles they each have been driven surely has proved they are worthy vehicles, as have the satisfaction of their owners.
Nissan itself expected that the one-billion-kilometer goal would be achieved by January 2015, Paul Willcox, Chairman for Nissan in Europe noted: “We are absolutely delighted to announce that we have achieved this landmark milestone earlier than anticipated. We would like to thank every single Nissan LEAF owner for helping us in reaching this world-first.”
One of the humorous things linked to EVs is the concept of “range anxiety” (or “range anxiety anxiety“). It certainly didn’t stop Nissan LEAF owners from driving one billion kilometers.
The latest LEAF has about an 80-mile driving range for a single charge.
Even more impressive perhaps is the fact that the LEAF is the best-selling electric car in history, with 147,000 purchased so far. It was only four years ago that the vehicle was launched.
Image by Zachary Shahan | EV Obsession | CleanTechnica (CC BY-SA 4.0)
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