Nissan’s LEAF Powers An Electric Fan
Who can forget the horror on CNN when, in 2011, an earthquake caused a tsunami that decimated large swathes of Japan? The little van in a futile race against the flood. The houses and building swept away, the ships thrown against shore-side buildings. Soon afterwards we learned of the catastrophe that was the flooded nuclear power station Fukushima. But one positive story to come out of that disaster was the brand-new Nissan LEAF EV and the new role that was invented for it on the spot.
The Nissan LEAF hit the market in 2010 and people asked: “Where can we charge them?” Less than a year later Nissan provided 66 LEAFs to help in the aftermath of the earthquake and tsunami. Nearly 5-million households lost power and the petrol supply was gone.
The LEAFs were charged with generators and emergency personnel used them to get to the affected areas. It was they who first saw the potential of using the LEAF’s battery to provide emergency power to areas that were out. It was in March and it was still bitterly cold, and the LEAF batteries were used to provide heating and to power medical equipment until generators could be bought in.
So the question changed from “Where can the LEAF go to charge” to “where can the LEAF go to provide power?”
This experience led Nissan to ramp up development of the technology used to efficiently share its battery power with homes, building and communities. With a portable power station, the latest generation Nissan LEAF e+ can use its fully-charged 62-Kw/h battery to power a Japanese home for four days, or it can charge 6200 smartphones, or even take a lift up and down a 43-story building 100 times.
Another factor that makes EVs a natural fit to help during a natural disaster is that electricity is generally much quicker to restore. In 2011, 90% of Japan’s power grid was up in a week, while only 50% of petrol stations were going.
After this experience, Nissan established partnerships with an increasing number of Japanese municipalities, with the EVs becoming the official vehicles. In day-to-day use these vehicles provide emission-free transport, while during emergencies they are mobile power sources. As part of this partnership, Nissan also supplies its dealership test-drive EVs for free during power outages.
This partnership was again successfully tested after the 2019 Typhoon Faxai, which left 340 000 households without power for three days in hot and humid weather. Nissan LEAFs were sent to community centres, where they were used to power fans, refrigerators, freezers, lights and smartphones.
Another partnership involved a chain of supermarkets that use LEAFs to stay open and keep things cool during power cuts.
“When people get an EV, they start to see the world differently,” says Ryusuke Hayashi, senior manager of EV operations at Nissan. “It makes the idea of using their EV to power the home a natural next step. Mobility impacts the way you live.”
This remarkable Nissan is one of the very few EVs available in South Africa, and you can arrange to test drive the Nissan LEAF.
