Electric car pioneer Nissan was an early pioneer of EV technology in Britain – and is now benefitting from this by commanding 50 percent of the UK new electric vehicle market in Q1 2017. Britain is also the third-largest global market for the Nissan Leaf EV, behind only the U.S. and Japan, and is the biggest nation of all for the e-NV200 electric van.
Success in Britain has played a big role in helping the Leaf become the world’s best-selling EV: every year since its launch in 2010, 1 in 4 Leaf sales throughout Europe has been in the UK. Sales have grown rapidly too – it took Nissan four years to hit 10,000 sales in Britain, but little more than a year to reach 15,000.
Now, 8 months later, it has topped 20,000 sales, and fittingly, the 20k UK Leaf was sold to an existing owner. Diane and Chris Ray of Hollesley in Suffolk switched their two-year old 24kWh Leaf for a new 30kWh one: Diane liked everything about it, and only wanted a Leaf with a bigger battery as a replacement.
It’s fitting that the Leaf is proving so successful in the UK, as it’s also built here. The Sunderland plant makes 55 a day, and there’s a battery plant next door to it supplying the Leaf’s lithium ion units. Nissan’s EV manager, Edward Jones, says “the number of customers who go on to buy another Leaf is… significantly higher that the industry average”. Such customers can now claim they own a genuinely all-British EV.
Of course, the current Leaf is not in its first flush of youth. It’s been around seven years, and is showing its age. Nissan’s happy to tell us an all-new Leaf is on the way in 2018, and is even keen to show us a first teaser of it ahead of its full reveal later this year.
In the meantime, it’s hoping to keep up the current car’s dominance with some double-take deals. How about this for starters: a Leaf Acenta 24kWh for £189 a month on a two-year 0 percent APR PCP deal? Nissan even gives you free insurance, free home charger, a £1000 contribution towards your deposit and the option of two years’ servicing and maintenance for just £99.
With deals like that, it’s no wonder Nissan’s taking such a high proportion of the UK’s record 4.4 percent market share of alternative fuelled vehicles…
More Nissan news on Motoring Research:
- Nissan Sunderland plant hit by cyber attack
- Sunderland safe: Nissan confirms car production will stay in UK
- Nissan IDS Concept previews next Nissan LEAF at Tokyo Motor Show
Toyota remains the world’s biggest car brand, with a value of $28.7 billion, according to the 2017 WPP and Kantar Millward Brown BrandZ study. However, this actually represents a 3 percent decline over last year. In contrast, Tesla’s value has shot up a staggering 32 percent, making it not only the eight most valuable automotive firm, but also the world’s fastest-growing car brand of all.
In an attempt to make it easier to identify the best value used cars, Auto Trader has introduced a new tagging system to accompany the prices of the cars for sale on the site. With this in mind, we thought we’d take a look at 20 4x4s marked ‘Great Price’. As ever, inclusion doesn’t represent an endorsement.
He’s a racing driver, an entrepreneur, an Instagram star, and he also happens to have a rather impressive collection of exotic cars. We delve inside Josh Cartu’s garage.
The new Lotus Elise Cup 250 is the fastest and most focused four-cylinder Lotus sports car ever, providing the revised Elise line-up with a range-topper that the firm says is “punching well above its weight”. Not that its weight is exactly lardy: ongoing mass-reduction measures have taken the dry weight down to a potential 860kg.
The Dodge La Femme arrived on the scene in 1955, a year when America was thriving with post-war prosperity. The baby boom was in full swing, and more people lived in the growing suburbs than in any other type of community, drawn by elbow room, fresh air, and affordable housing for growing families.
Women were going to work in greater numbers than ever before by the mid-1950s, accounting for about one-third of the workforce and increasing overall household income. They were also taking a greater interest in cars; about one half of all adult women held a driver’s license. The automobile industry recognized that women were a growing presence in the marketplace, and actively sought to court to them.
Yet what the La Femme represents, however obtusely, is a recognition by the American automotive industry, and therefore the largest sector of industrial manufacturing on the planet, that women were an rising economic force, and that it was imperative that their specific wants and needs be addressed. So great was this tide that by 1958, GM executives from all over the country came to the unofficially named Feminine Auto Show to see the cars created by its six female designers. Not too many years later, Ford released its own car created to appeal to women: the now world-famous Mustang.
Women make or influence a majority of new car purchases today, and manufacturers do everything they can to appeal to them. Marketing is a science, and demographics can target a person by age, gender, region, education level, and myriad more variables. Once a target demographic is acquired, the manufacturers do their best to present a vehicle that has the performance levels, economy, and features that demographic wants. This La Femme ad from 1956 illustrates the difference between a car “designed with the ladies in mind” (as stated in the above ad) and the modern practice of designing a car that offers the attributes a particular demographic wants.
Viewed through today’s standards, the marketing material shouts, “Hey, princess! Pink is for girls!” which hits every wrong nerve in modern psyches. It discolors perception of the La Femme, which is a powerful, well-engineered, and stylish vehicle. It’s designed by Exner, has a wicked Hemi under the hood, and comes with a matching umbrella, just like a new Rolls Royce.
The Austrian town of Reifnitz on the side of Lake Worth, or Worthersee, has hosted the ‘GTI Treffen’ festival for 36 years. Originally a small meet of Volkswagen enthusiasts (just 100 cars attended the first event), more than 100,000 fans from all over Europe now head to the Alps at the end of May. We sent a snapper to the event and captured some of the weird and wacky VWs in attendance.
