The Nissan Leaf was launched in Japan, in December 2010. Sales in the US also started that same month, but it wasn’t before Spring 2012 that it became available in most of Europe. Then 2013 was a big year, with the opening of two new factories. One in England, one in America, to make the Leaf a true world car. Localized production helped a lot to lower the prices, it also made the Leaf an easier sell to some business customers. So sales are up, and the 100,000th customer got his car this Monday.

The happy new Leaf owner is a British dentist, Brett Garner from Fareham, in Hampshire. He was convinced by the low running costs of the Leaf, and those were highlighted by Nissan with the concept above. The Nissan Leaf costs pennies to run, so the manufacturer had one entirely covered with just that: pennies! 100,000 of them. 50,000 two pence Sterling coins from the UK and 50,000 two cents Euro coins from Europe. The two pence coin was chosen because in the UK, driving a Nissan Leaf only costs £0.02 per mile. No gas car is ever going to beat that, and Nissan’s hope is that more and more people will notice, but it will take time. Porsche has sold 84,000 Cayenne SUVs last year! Maybe gas is too cheap…