Nissan LEAF: Green Car of the Year 2010

The Nissan Leaf - Green Car of the Year 2010

The Nissan LEAF has been named Green Car of the Year 2010, despite not even being on sale. Barking.

I think we must be stupid.

The Nissan LEAF was listed as a finalist for the 2011 European Car of the Year, which we found outstandingly peculiar as the LEAF is still not a production car. Perhaps we could suggest adding the Jaguar C-X75 to the list? It is very appealing and uses a very efficient method of propulsion.

And now the Nissan LEAF has been named Green Car of the Year 2010. Even though it won’t hit the roads until 2011. Are we missing something? Is there a logic we don’t understand? Or are these COTY Awards simply trying to polish a green halo? Is a bit of cool green more important than facts?

From our perspective a car needs to offer something exceptional to be a COTY. But firstly, people need to be able to buy it. Which you can’t with the LEAF. According to the Green Car Webiste – whose award this is – the Nissan LEAF “… is designed to be a proper family hatchback, capable of carrying five people and their luggage, while offering a respectable range and performance criteria.” I think we’ll take issue.

When you daren’t go more than 40 miles, why would you need to take any luggage? And how is being able to go only 40 miles in one direction a respectable range? You can just see Ford boasting that the new Focus can get all the way to Heathrow from Gatwick and back again without filling up. And then you’d only have to wait another eight hours before you can go out again whilst it refuelled.

The performance seems decent, but if you use it you’ll be lucky to be able to go more than 30 miles and be able to get back. And the LEAF ‘only’ costs £24k, even after the taxpayer has coughed up £5k. And it is cheap to run, but only because electricity doesn’t get taxed the same as petrol. If just 20% of us piled in to electric cars the National Grid would collapse and electricity would be taxed to the hilt. Most of all it’s completely impractical as a car. It’s just a toy.

Or don’t these people see that?