Nissan (NSANY, Financial) has long been a popular name in the electric car segment and has been a leader in this segment for quite some time. While governments in China and the U.S. in particular are becoming stricter on emission regulations, they are advocating sales of EVs and are offering incentives to EV makers to promote manufacturing of electric vehicles. Taking the first mover advantage, Nissan has promoted EVs to the roads and the Leaf has been long known to be the most popular EV in the U.S. Currently, news sources have confirmed that Nissan has made an electric pickup truck having combined features from Leaf and Nissan’s small pickup truck Frontier. Let’s check out what the features of the new offering from Nissan’s assembly line would have and what its future prospects are. Here we go.
The combined offer
Beyond the polished concept cars, automakers sometimes make unique vehicles simply because they have the parts and tools required in the building exercise, and the same applies to Nissan’s "why not" attitude. The open-minded thought process of the company researchers have given way to the creation of a one-of-a-kind vehicle that blurs the lines between the Frontier pickup truck and the Leaf EV.
This has given birth to the Leaf pickup truck recently at Nissan’s Technical Center at Stanfield, Arizona. The research team was interested in building the pickup truck out of a Leaf. And there was a lot of enthusiasm involved in the creation.
The research team basically took the stock Leaf, and after reviewing a bunch of designs of pickup trucks decided to go with the Frontier bed for making the ultimate combination.
From the vision of the research team, the Frontier cargo bed was secured with the Leaf front end. They have ripped out the Leaf’s rear seats and chopped off the rear cabins at the B pillars. The Frontier bed fit lengthwise, but the width has been trimmed when fitting the Leaf chasis. The tailgate appears to be built from the Leaf’s original hatchback door, with a rounded spoiler to finish it off.
The model has been outfitted with a bespoke rear light treatment with ground lights, wood bed trim, a set of rails and a glossy red paint job.
The pickup truck has been nicknamed Sparky and is also popular as the Leaf pickup currently doing duty hauling people and cargo around the 3,000-acre proving grounds, supporting operations in testing vehicle durability and comfort in the hot Arizona weather.
Regarding the mileage, things are not yet clear whether the pickup makeover has affected the Leaf’s 84-mile range, but it sounds like the truck would have enough juice to handle its daily duties around the center.
The prospects in the pickup segment
As the U.S. population waits for Elon Musk’s Tesla (TSLA, Financial) to build an electric pickup, in the meantime, Sparky – the converted Leaf –Â is there to create the ultimate difference. Engineers Ronald Schellenberg and Arnold Moulinet led the project for building this weird but much wanted model which is expected to pry several eyes if it’s released in the market.
The Leaf is a highly capable, thoroughly funky EV that is admired round the globe. Through August, Nissan had sold 18,941 Leafs in the U.S., as per website goodcarbadcar.net. This means that the electric car is creating waves in the U.S., holding the number one position with Tesla just behind it at number two.
With the makeover, the company hopes to create a better footprint in the pickup truck segment where it presently holds the seventh position in the segment until August, having improved sales of Nissan’s Frontier by 16.8% year-to-date.
Parting words
Nissan has maintained its lead in the EV segment with Tesla trailing behind and other automakers trying to catch up with its pace. Once again, the new pickup EV might lure truck buyers and might steal chunk of market share from the leaders in this segment – Ford (F, Financial), General Motors (GM, Financial) and Toyota (TM, Financial). Let’s keep watching when this superb combination of Frontier and Leaf hits the U.S. market. Only then can we be sure of the impact it has on the growing market share of the leaders in this segment, and whether Nissan is able to create its ultimate niche in this segment.
