Up close and personal with the Nissan Leaf

	View online  | Share on Facebook	November 27, 2009

	This week in Car Tech Wayne Cunningham CNET.com The Leaf in person Nissan is doing a preview tour of its all-electric Leaf model, and brought it by our offices in San Francisco. Although the car wasn't drive-ready, we did get a close look. Nissan expects to launch the Leaf as a 2011 model in December of next year. Its 100-mile range is pretty typical for current battery technology. Navigation will be standard, and the car will be connected. This means you could start its charge cycle with an iPhone, for example. Looking under Nissan's Leaf Most popular products Garmin Nuvi 255W  Check prices TomTom XL 340 S  Check prices Garmin Nuvi 265WT  Check prices Garmin Nuvi 765T  Check prices TomTom XL 330S  Check prices Latest reviews and features GoPro Motorsports HD Hero The GoPro HD Hero captures crisp HD video and offers users a great deal of flexibility with resolution and mounting options. However, some users may find it to be too complex for its two-button interface and tiny screen. Read more  Check prices U.S. Mazda2 launching at Los Angeles Auto Show A burgeoning small car market in the U.S. convinced Mazda to finally sell its tiny Mazda2 here. The car, available around the world since 2007, will be shown with its U.S. specs at the 2009 Los Angeles Auto Show. It joins the Honda Fit, Toyota Yaris, Scion xD, and Kia Soul in a subcompact market that has seen increasing sales. Read more Driverless Audi TTS considered for Pikes Peak run A combined effort with Volkswagen's Electronics Research Laboratory (ERL), Stanford University's Dynamics Design Lab (SDDL), and Sun Microsystem's resulted in an autonomous Audi TTS. The group working on the car is considering a run up the 12.4-mile Pikes Peak Hill Climb course in 2010 to demonstrate the capabilities of its driverless technology. Read more Garmin Nuvi 1690 By itself, the Garmin Nuvi 1690 is merely a solidly performing GPS device, but it earns its keep through the free nuLink service, giving users easy access to up-to-the-minute data for safety, convenience, and entertainment. Read more  Check prices Car Tech blog Google Maps Navigation arrives for Android 1.6 Bonnie Cha One of the highlights of Android 2.0 has been the Google Maps Navigation app that delivers voice-guided turn-by-turn navigation on your phone for free. Until now, only Motorola Droid owners could take advantage of this sweet perk, but times they are a-changing. Read more Comment of the week Automotive industry suggestion Posted by jonathan0766 The auto industry desperately needs to move to a built to order model to wipe out inventory and dealerships (reducing cost of vehicles by probably 30 percent in the process, while improving margins radically by killing the inventory problem). Go to a sales location, test drive/look at/touch models on hand, order your car, come back in a week and pick it up at the same location. It would triple auto industry profit margins, wipe out the massive inventory control problems (savings on not building tons of copies of cars that aren't selling well alone would justify it).  Read more  Most discussed articles 1. BMW debuts the new 5-series online 2. Google Maps Navigation arrives for Android 1.6 3. Some BMWs will get four-cylinder engines 4. Electric-car maker Tesla preparing IPO 5. U.S. Mazda2 launching at Los Angeles Auto Show More Car Tech resources  Car Tech forums  Green car buying guide  Car Tech videos  Car Tech podcast  All new car reviews  Past car shows
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