“Driving ohm for Christmas.” As press release headlines go, this one is straight out of a Christmas cracker.
To be honest, most media outlets are just jealous that Nissan got there first.
The company has revealed an all-electric Leaf with a light display powered entirely by its own regenerative braking energy system. It’s called the Nissan TREE. Well, it is Christmas…
The current (ba’dum tish) Nissan Leaf features an e-Pedal, which allows drivers to start, accelerate, decelerate and stop using only the accelerator pedal.
It also harvests energy via regenerative braking or deceleration. This energy goes straight back to the batteries where it is used to recharge the cells.
The Nissan (Christmas) Tree is fitted with thousands of LEDs, shimmery baubles and a reindeer. “The car is brighter than Rudolph’s nose,” claims Nissan.
The company says the average Nissan Leaf driver regenerates 744kWh of clean energy over the course of 11,000 miles. This is the equivalent to 20 percent of the domestic electricity consumption of an average household.
Alternatively, it’s enough for:
- 266 Christmas tree lights with 700 incandescent lights for one hour
- 297 ovens for one hour
- 744 televisions for five hours
- 10,783 houses with 1,000 LED lights for five hours
‘Festive mode of transport’
Helen Parry, head of electric vehicles for Nissan Europe, said: “Santa shouldn’t be the only one with a festive mode of transport. We wanted to make the Nissan Leaf more fun at this time of year whilst driving home a very important message.
“We hope this custom-made vehicle inspires people about the benefits of regenerative energy. After nearly ten years since Leaf was first introduced in Europe, Nissan continues to be fully focused on providing consumers a more sustainable lifestyle through electric mobility.”
Click here to read our review of the Nissan Leaf. We can guarantee that it contains no Christmas-related puns.