Nissan Leaf Electric Car No Laughing Matter

The latest challenger in the electric vehicle ring made its debut on Sunday: the Nissan Leaf. At first glance, it’s got several things going for it:

• It’s cute but not weird
• It’s 100% gasoline- and emissions-free
• It’s got a 100-mile range on lithium-ion batteries
• It’s supposed to carry a price tag that competes with gasoline cars (Popular Science is guessing around $30,000)

Nissan’s goal is to make the Leaf an affordable, mass-market, all-electric vehicle. They plan on having these things hit the market — the real market, not the small-batch, lease-only test market — by 2012.