It’s called the Nissan Leaf Open Car, and it’s a
concept created to celebrate the milestone of 100,000 units sold in Japan ever
since the electric model was introduced in the country eight years ago.
Presented at the Tokyo forum on zero-emission
society in front of a crowd of approximately 100 people, including government officials
and company executives, the open-top study builds upon the second-gen Leaf and
brings back memories of the Murano Crosscabriolet.
Nissan hasn’t said anything about the Targa-style
roof, structural rigidity, rollover protection, raised rear bench and two-door
body style adopted by this concept. However, since it’s built for show purposes
only (we’ll drink to that!), it doesn’t have to meet any safety requirements.
In fact, the Japanese automaker has yet to detail
the Leaf Open Car, but mentions some of the features that equip the regular
model. Here we have the ProPilot semi-autonomous driving system, e-Pedal and
other ‘Intelligent Mobility’ technologies. So we can assume that all of these
are part of the open-top model, too, alongside the 150 PS electric motor and 40kWh battery pack.
With its roof in place, the five-door electric
hatchback takes a respectable 8.2sec to reach 100 km/h from a
standstill, and has a NEDC-estimated driving range of up to 378 km.
