Nissan and Europcar announced that Nissan LEAF, the award-winning 100% electric car, will be available to hire on short term rental in two of the busiest capital cities in the world: Paris and London. From February, the 2011 World and European Car of The Year will be available for hire bringing the LEAF to a wider audience.
"There are two distinct reasons for joining forces with Europcar to introduce Nissan LEAF to the short term rental market in these two busy cities," said Guillaume Cartier, Vice President for Sales Operations at Nissan International SA. "The first is obvious: with its absence of tailpipe emissions and an outstanding driving pleasure, the Nissan LEAF is the perfect car for the inner city. The second is for drivers currently unsure whether an EV is suitable for their needs. By renting a Nissan LEAF and living with it in real world conditions they can evaluate the car in their own time," he added.
The Nissan LEAF has a homologated range of 175km which is more than 90% of European drive in a day.
"Europcar has long believed in electric vehicles as a sustainable means of mobility and is committed to enabling early adoption of this type of vehicles. We are proud to partner with Nissan to facilitate expansion of electric vehicles and provide our customers with the greenest possible mobility solutions" said Rafael Girona, Chief Operating Officer of Europcar.
While Nissan LEAF is as easy to drive as a conventional car, every customer renting a LEAF will be given a face-to-face handover by a Nissan-trained Europcar representative fully conversant with the car and its workings. In order to make its customer' life even easier Europcar will take care of recharging the cars and will invoice neither the electricity used to recharging the cars after the rentals nor any service fee as it exists for conventional Diesel or Petrol vehicles.
For total peace of mind, a Nissan Hotline exists for customers to call with any query. At the end of the rental period every customer will be surveyed by Europcar with feedback used to help shape future generations of Nissan EV.
The pilot scheme - which is initially to run for three months - takes the form of a Definitive Agreement between the two companies, and follows a Memorandum of Understanding in which both undertook to investigate ways of jointly promoting the concept of emission-free motoring. The scheme could be widened to other cities in France and England and to other countries in Europe.
