America's first Nissan Leaf.

When it comes to hybrid cars, there are two schools of thought.  There are the fans of the plug-in hybrid, like the Nissan Leaf, and fans of the electric car with gas back-up, like the Chevy Volt.  Which side you fall on may be determined by the type of driving that you do.  For example, let’s take a look at the Nissan Leaf.  Bloomberg’s Jason Harper got the chance to drive the Leaf around New York City, and here are his impressions.

For me, having read the above driving test of the Leaf, I think I’d lean towards the Chevy Volt.  I generally lean towards American cars anyway, but the fact that the Leaf needs a 220 charging station akin to an old clothes dryer and the Volt can recharge itself using its electric generator (and thus will never run out of juice so long as you keep the gas tank filled) seems to be what triggers the balance towards the Chevy version.

Given the fact that the Leaf also kind of looks, ahem, odd… that’s just another point in Chevy’s column.  In fact, I kind of hate the design of that car (especially the bubble headlights and the weird butt-lump hatchback door).  Still, it might be just the thing for my daily commute to and from work, if I could remember to charge it every night.  I could live without a phone for a day, but if my car ran out of juice halfway home?  There’s no way I could deal with that.

Tags: Nissan Leaf, Nissan debuts Leaf, test-drive of Nissan Leaf, electric cars, alternate fuel, electric car debuts, Nissan Leaf electric car test-drive, Nissan Leaf test drive, long-term test drive of Nissan Leaf, electric car sales strategy, all-electric plug-in hybrid

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