Nissan has confirmed final details ahead of the showroom launch of its all-electric Leaf – the world’s first mass-produced electric vehicle.
The UK order books on the car will open on September 1, at which point initial deposits of £257 will be accepted via Nissan’s website.
Read Autocar's first drive of the Nissan Leaf
Depositors will be given the opportunity to test drive the Leaf before December 2010, before formally confirming their order. UK deliveries will begin in March 2011.
The final UK showroom price of the Leaf has been confirmed as £23,990, which includes VAT at 20 per cent, as well as the UK government’s recently confirmed £5000 ultra low carbon vehicle incentive.
Enterprise rent-a-car to hire the Nissan Leaf
£43 million has been allocated to the incentive scheme by the government, which means grants should be available for more than 8000 electric cars bought before March 2012.
However, uncertainty still surrounds exactly how much ownership of a Leaf will cost.
Nissan has elected to sell the Leaf’s lithium-ion battery as part of the car, rather than to lease it with a view to replacing it when the battery is worn out.
That means there will be no additional lease costs associated with the battery itself – and fuelling the Leaf will therefore cost UK owners an average of just £2.54 per 100-mile full charge.
But it also means that, when Nissan’s battery warranty expires after eight years and 100,000 miles, owners could potentially be exposed to an £8000 bill.
For that reason, the UK’s residual value estimators are being unusually circumspect about the Leaf: Glass’s has already suggested that they expect the car to be worth less than £3000 at five years old.
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Re: Nissan Leaf on sale 1 September
£3000 at five years old, for a car that costs £25k. And they expect people to buy this?
My prediction is that only extreme greenies will buy this, which won't be enough customers to justify building it, it will flop and will be withdrawn from sale in 2013. Another GM EV1 fiasco?