With Hawaii following suit and announcing State rebate for buying electric cars, we can easily say that era of green technology is just all around us. California took the lead in announcing massive infrastructure upgrades and tax rebates for buying zero-emission cars to ease pollution levels across the entire State.
With the dawn of new market of electric cars, we look at the potential contenders that could become the market leaders of the new and emerging market of electric cars. Tesla has been doing its electric cars for quite some time now, the only difference being that its products are beyond the reach of folks like you and me. Nissan and Chevy are engaged in a very interesting and active development of electric cars for mass commercial adoption across the States. And Ford is doing its own Research and Development to come up a new electric car that can match Nissan Leaf or Chevy Volt.
With Toyota entering into a strategic alliance with Tesla, the stakes in the electric car market space are higher than anyone would have expected last year. However, at this point, the focus is clearly on Nissan and Chevy because Nissan has already started taking reservations for Nissan Leaf and Chevy is close to reaching that stage with its new product called Volt.
This brings us to an all important question. Will it be Leaf or Volt that will be the car of the future. Although there can be no definite answers on this one, we are sure to say that Nissan has quite a good head-start over Chevy as far as electric car technology is concerned.
To begin with, Volt is not entire a 100% electric car because it is more of a hybrid car that can run as an electric car as well as a gas-driven car. So, essentially it is more like Toyota Prius. What this means is that the competition between Leaf and Volt is not really the correct competition because Leaf remains untouched as far as its electric antecedents are concerned.
Compared to Volt’s 40 miles mileage on full re-charge, a Leaf promises 100 miles on a complete charge. And if you take into account the State rebates for zero-emission technology that are available on Leaf then the commercial pricing of Nissan Leaf makes it a compelling buy. Volt is already over-priced compared to Nissan Leaf and the Leaf deals are absolutely so compelling after the tax rebates that the focus is clearly on Leaf as of now.
I understand that Chevy has decided to walk a path that is not ridden with any stumbling blocks and hybrid technology will find acceptance easily for being receptive to the gasoline world. But, if you are talking about the technology that will drive the future, then Nissan has already taken a giant leap into the future automotive leadership. Irrespective of the fact whether Leaf will gain or fail, Nissan will have gained a lot and that will actually help it establish over other Japanese manufactures across the entire world.
The guest post is written by Rob May, a fuel strategist with professional fuel card analysis ability. Rob can help offer customized fuel cards solution by considering your fleet’s fuel needs.
