Dec 05 - Arizona Daily Star


The plug-in, all-electric Nissan Leaf will make its first public appearance in Tucson Jan. 4, said Colleen Crowninshield, Clean Cities program manager at Pima Association of Governments.

Tucson is one of several U.S. cities chosen for the test marketing of the joint Renault-Nissan all-electric vehicle. The car is expected to go into production later in 2010 and be available for sale in the test markets in 2011.

Tucson is also one of several cities on the Nissan Leaf national introduction tour. No specific Tucson site for the introduction has been chosen yet, she said.

Crowninshield said she saw the car coming to Tucson at its national rollout at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles last week. She said it's a preproduction version of the Leaf and won't be available for test drives. For demonstration purposes Nissan has installed the all-electric drivetrain in a Nissan Versa, a comparable-sized model normally powered by a gas engine.

In a related development, Crowninshield said two Bookmans Entertainment Exchange stores - 1930 E. Grant Road and 3733 W. Ina Road - will install electric car-charging stations.

She said Bookmans management is supportive of electric vehicles - the Grant Road store had a charging station for the all-electric GM EV-1 in the 1990s - and decided to foot the entire bill for the charging stations rather than wait for the federal stimulus package's electric car charging infrastructure funding, which won't be available until early 2010.

Tucson qualified for a share of a $100 million charging infrastructure funding package that will be used to install public charging stations throughout the Tucson area.

Contact reporter Dan Sorenson at 573-4185 or dsorenson@azstarnet.com

Originally published by DAN SORENSON, ARIZONA DAILY STAR.

(c) 2009 Arizona Daily Star. Provided by ProQuest LLC. All rights Reserved.