Rethinking the LEAF

My comments about Tesla in my last post led me to YouTube to have a look at Top Gear’s take on the roadster. In the drag race it even manages push Jeremy Clarkson close to peeing his pants.

The volthead has just overtaken the petrolhead and yes.. it is snowing in hell!

According to Tesla, the range concerns are deeply disingenuous. The silver car never ran out so the men in white coats are just simulating what would happen if… anyway, this isn’t the point.

As I said, the Nissan LEAF needs to thrill to be a winner. Now I’m not so sure. My guess is that their target market will value efficiency over sportiness. Electric cars really come into their own in an urban setting. They are about two and a half times more efficient. Also, from grid to wheel only about 10% of the energy is lost (compare that to conventional fuel where about 80% of the energy gets lost before it genuinely propels the car).

The problem is that driving an economic vehicle is all too often mistaken for a smug sense of self importance. ‘Saving the planet’ becomes the moral disguise with allows hybrid drivers to close their eyes wile the lecture us all (see South Park’s brilliant take on this - episode ‘Smug Alert!’)

It doesn’t have to be this way. Efficiency might just be a personal thing. You know you’re not wasting energy when you’re driving in traffic. And this doesn’t have to be the whole ‘because that harms poor Johnny Polar Bear’ thing. For a start it can be more about cash than carbon and it’s hardly impossible to value keeping your house in order without being smug.

But don’t expect Jeremy Clarkson to understand. He has enough money to pay the cleaners. And I hear sets barrels of oil on fire in his back garden just for kicks.