Nissan LEAF EV stretched

When new cars get interesting jobs, it’s one of the first signs that they, and whatever new technology they may bring to bear, are on the road to mainstream acceptance. That seems to be happening with Nissan’s LEAF, looked upon by pundits and competing brands as the EV most likely to make the breakthrough.

First came the news that NYPD and Scotland Yard have bought fleets of Chevy Volts (aka Vauxhall Amperas in the UK). More recently, Nissan has announced that Portugal’s Polícia de Segurança Pública (PSP) has put a fleet of eight LEAFs to work in full blue-and-white regalia, initially on its Safe School Program, but with more vigorous enforcement work to come.

And now comes a new instalment with news from Nashville, Tennessee, with news that the Embassy Suites hotel is ferrying guests back and forth between lobby, city and airport in a LEAF limousine.

This may seem an odd choice, given the limo’s synonymy with extravagance and ego-pampering. Here, indulgence gives way to novelty, care of Missouri conversion specialists Imperial LimoLand. “This is the world’s first roadworthy, licensed, street legal electric limousine,” Embassy Suites Nashville South spokesman Trevor Goulding told media in a statement.

Mechanically, the car is unchanged from the original, despite the gain of 180 kilos with the lengthening of the mid-section, the commensurate chassis bolstering and the addition of an extra row of seats and interior appointments like full leather upholstery, cedar panelling and large tracts of mirror.

While the original 24kWh battery remains, it’s been shifted rearwards in the name of weight distribution. Naturally none of this does any good at all to quell the range anxiety hindering acceptance of EVs the world over. But given the normal trip on which it’s used is less than eight kilometres, the hotel isn’t bothered by such issues. Indeed it seems pretty sensible; all the more so given the LEAF’s ability to fulfil that other hallmark of limo travel: whispery silence.

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