#NissanLeaf

Nissan has a reason to celebrate now that their electric vehicle, the Leaf, has achieved its milestone of 10,000 vehicles sold in the US. The Leaf, which first hit the American market in December 2010, still isn’t available in all 50 states – though Nissan looks to rectify that by March of this year.

Surely the impressive sales figure proves that American consumers are open to the idea of electric vehicles. In fact, we would go so far as to say that the worldwide market is embracing EVs as Nissan has sold 20,000 Leafs globally. The Leaf’s impressive sales figures trump all other OEMs combined sales of electric vehicles throughout the world – though that’s not saying much, considering there isn’t much competition out there as of yet.

It’ll be interesting to see if the Leaf stays strong in the sales category once the Ford Focus Electric and even the Honda Fit EV hit the marketplace.

[Source: AutoBlog Green]

Read AutoGuide’s Nissan Leaf Review here and watch our review below:

The BMW ActiveE, or electric 1-Series, is finally available for lease, though there aren’t many up for grabs.

The Nissan Leaf just got a little greener. Nissan is exploring ways on how to reuse the electric car’s lithium-ion battery packs once it can no longer power the emissions-free car.

It’s the SIM-LEI EV, built by the SIM Company, founded in 2009 at Japan’s Keio University. What separates it from the other EVs on the block is SIM’spreference to use four electric motors, one per wheel, rather than a central motor under the hood. The car should have debuted in March, 2011 but couldn’t meet that date after the earthquake devastation of last year.

What’s the best car of 2012? Who knows. Is a Porsche GT3 RS 4.0 better than a Ferrari 458 Italia? What about the Scion FR-S? Or a Prius Plug-in Hybrid? The past year has seen the launch of numerous excellent vehicles, including some we really didn’t expect to be any good. That said, we’ve put together our list of the top five surprisingly good cars of 2012, starting with the updated Mazda3.

As another calendar year draws to a close it’s time to take a look back at the top 10 biggest stories of the year in the auto industry. It’s been a busy 12 months, starting all the way back in March when the Fiat 500 officially went on sale, marking the return of the brand to America. The last time an Italian car was sold here that didn’t cost six figures (or close to it) was 27 years ago. Since then, Fiat has introduced the 500C convertible model and most recently the Fiat 500 Abarth, aimed at enthusiasts.

After the Chevrolet Volt’s battery fire hazard debacle, electric vehicles have received intense scrutiny over the integrity of battery cells. To answer these concerns, Nissan has stepped forward to address the strength of its Leaf electric vehicle without the direct mentioning of controversies.

The two biggest rivals at the moment are the Nissan Leaf and the Chevrolet Volt. While the Leaf is a fully electric vehicle, the Volt in a plug-in hybrid, so when the battery dies, you can still keep moving, provided you have some gasoline in its tank.

While Chevy‘s Volt is having to battle some major negative press, Nissan‘s Leaf is celebrating its first birthday with over 19,000 owners who have given the world over 32-million gas-free miles.

To celebrate its first birthday, Nissan employed the assistance of electrical sockets to sing the Leaf its birthday song. Dubbed “Singing Sockets”, the video/commercial wishes the first and only mass-produced electric car a very happy birthday.

Nissan will also be taking to Facebook and Twitter (follow #LEAFBday) to celebrate with their owners, looking for videos, photos and memories from the Leaf’s first year of existence.

Check out Nissan’s Singing Sockets video after the break.

It’s been one year since the Nissan Leaf hit North America, and to celebrate, the automaker is going to expand this EVs availability into new U.S. markets.

While the Chevrolet Volt has struggled a bit to get traction in the marketplace, Nissan‘s all-electric Leaf is well on pace to sell 10,000 units in the United States, meeting its initial sales targets.

New car reviews are often carefully crafted pieces of prose. They’re well thought out with plenty of reflection by the author about the vehicle’s relevance, its target audience and how it stacks up against segment rivals. What they lack, however, is a sense of authenticity that comes from unfiltered opinion and reaction. Where you can get that, in 140 characters of less, is Twitter.

Recently AutoGuide.com Editor-in-Chief Colum Wood ( @ColumWood) had on-loan a Nissan Leaf electric car as a press tester. If you’re a follower then you already know this as he tweeted incessantly on the car. For everyone else, we thought a journalistic experiment might help, compiling all the relevant tweets into a diary of sorts, documenting life with an electric car and running here, on the much more conventional medium of a News Blog.

See below for a look at what really goes on before a review is published and follow @ColumWood for immediate reaction on the latest car news.

The Top 10 Most Fuel Efficient cars have been named for 2012 by the Environmental Protection Agency. The EPA (those guys that come up with the official ratings for cars) has compiled the list, which is dominated by Japanese automakers. Those remaining two are domestic vehicles, although with one being a commercial van, it almost should count. On the list are electric and hybrid vehicles only, with no diesels or pure gasoline engines.

Behold, the new bar for fuel economy: 126 highway miles per gallon equivalent (MPGe). Which car is championing these figures? The Mitsubishi i electric vehicle.

Among the current obstacles facing EV owners, one of the biggest is often charging the thing. In many cases, using standard 120 volt current can take up to a full day to charge the vehicle and DC quick chargers,(which can replenish battery packs in under an hour) are often few and far between.