Nissan Offers Free And Easy Charging For LEAF Cars

Nissan Offers Free And Easy Charging For LEAF CarsDriving an electric car has its fair share of advantages – electricity is a whole lot more affordable than a full tank of gas, not to mention electric cars have no emissions that will clog up the earth’s atmosphere with poisonous gases. The thing is, a gas station is whole lot more common than an electric vehicle charging point, and Nissan intends to encourage the uptake in their Nissan LEAF electric car by expanding on its successful “No Charge to Charge” promotion that will see the automobile manufacturer offer two years of free public charging with the purchase or lease of a new Nissan LEAF.

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  • Nissan Offers Free And Easy Charging For LEAF Cars original content from Ubergizmo.

    Nissan Leaf prototype becomes first autonomous car to hit Japanese highways (video)

    Autonomous autos are somewhat old hat for commuters in California and Nevada, but Japan’s only just seen one hit its public roads. After earning a license plate in September, Nissan’s driverless (and electric) Leaf hit the pavement of the country’s Sagami Expressway, becoming the very first self-driving car to complete a public road test on a highway in the Land of the Rising Sun. The firm’s Autonomous Drive tech, which handles everything from detecting road conditions to merging into traffic, piloted the car onto the interstate, passed slowpokes and exited the freeway. Sure, this is a notable milestone for Nissan, but the company’s goal to sell autos with the technology by 2020 is still a long way off.

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    Autoblog

    Source: Nissan

    Nissan’s autonomous Leaf shows its smarts on Japanese test track

    Nissan's autonomous Leaf shows its smarts on Japanese test track

    Now that Nissan’s partially automated Leaf has the proverbial green light to traverse some of Japan’s roadways, we figured we’d place our lives in the hands of various computer systems in order to have one whisk us around a test track at CEATEC. This year’s autonomous Leaf demo was a step up from last year, with our test vehicle trained to not only stay between the lines, but also pause and evaluate the situation when faced with a fellow car.

    An on-site representative informed us that off-the-shelf PC components are being used to calculate its motions at the moment, and yes, it’s a Windows-based system underneath (for now, anyway). A suite of prohibitively expensive lasers keep the car from veering outside of its lane, while onboard processing determines whether a stopped or slowed vehicle is passable or not. The company has tested the automated Leaf at speeds as high as 70 kilometers per hour, but we barely broke 15 on the track. Speaking of which, you can catch a bit of footage from our ride just after the break.

    Mat Smith and Richard Lai contributed to this report. %Gallery-slideshow99622%

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    UK to test driverless cars on public roads before the end of 2013

    UK to test driverless cars on public roads before the end of 2013

    While Americans have seen a few driverless cars on the open road, their British counterparts have had to settle for demos on private circuits. They’ll get a better glimpse soon, though, as the UK Department for Transport now expects tests on public streets by the end of 2013. The initial trial runs will be gentle — Oxford University’s Nissan Leaf-based RobotCars will drive only on lightly trafficked roads, with humans tagging along in the event of a crisis. We haven’t yet seen a timetable for more aggressive experiments, but we’re not exactly in a hurry to compete with early autonomous cars during rush hour.

    [Image credit: Oxford University]

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    Via: BBC

    Source: Gov.uk

    Nissan launching $100 per month Leaf battery replacement program in 2014

    Nissan launches anytime Leaf battery replacement program for $100 per month

    How much would a Leaf owner pay to banish range anxiety? If your answer was “$100 a month,” then Nissan’s got a proposition for you. The car maker is gearing up to launch a domestic battery replacement program for its EV in 2014 that’ll set you back that aforementioned sum. Similar to Nissan’s setup in Europe, if your battery can only hold nine out of 12 bars worth of charge, it’ll replace the unit with a new or reconditioned unit. The company insists that very few will ever actually need to replace the battery, but hey, squeezing $1,200 a year out of its existing customers is a sure-fire way to inspire loyalty.

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    Via: Autoblog.green

    Leaf Ultimate Paper Thin Indoor HDTV Antenna

    TV antennas – what are your impressions and memories of them? Personally speaking, I would think of them as bunny ears with a tech slant. Having said that, since we are well into the 21st century already and have gotten past all that Y2K hoo-haa and stuff, how about revolutionizing the way TV antennas look like? This is where the $89.99 Leaf Ultimate Paper Thin Indoor HDTV Antenna come in handy, where it would definitely prove to be a killer to bunny ears TV antenna design, offering far more TV channels with a higher picture quality than ever before.

    This is not the first Leaf in existence, but rather, it is the, er, successful successor, for the lack of a better word. The original Leaf did have its issues should you be too close to a signal source, but the Leaf Ultimate has eliminated that particular weakness, thanks to a revolutionary digital TV amplifier that sports a low noise figure and one-of-a-kind RF filtering. In a nutshell, you can theoretically receive up to 20 channels in full 1080p definition, but seriously, do you have so much time on your hands to be able to watch all of that? The Leaf Ultimate Paper Thin Indoor HDTV Antenna is powered by a USB port, making it a snap to set up and will only consume power whenever your TV is turned on, all the while looking discrete in nature.
    [ Leaf Ultimate Paper Thin Indoor HDTV Antenna copyright by Coolest Gadgets ]

    Bosch offers $3,000 wireless chargers to Leaf and Volt owners

    DNP Bosch crazy expensive wireless charger

    Bosch recently released an $450 charging solution for EVs, but if you want to go wireless, it’s going to cost you a lot more. The company has formed an exclusive partnership with Evatran for the distribution and installation of its wireless chargers for the Nissan Leaf and Chevy Volt. Each Plugless Level 2 Electric Vehicle Charging System (now that’s a tongue-twister) costs $2,998 for the Volt and $3,098 for the Leaf, not including taxes and installation fees. It’s comprised of a wall-mounted control panel that provides electricity to the parking pad, which transmits power to your vehicle. You’ve got to admit it’s convenient when all you have to do to juice up is park on top of the pad, but would you actually shell out that much cash in the name of convenience when plugging a (cheaper) charger in is no Herculean task?

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    Via: Plugin Cars, Autoblog

    Source: Bosch

    PayPal targets Square with hardware trade-ins, waives fees through 2013

    DNP PayPal

    After watching its rivals Square and Groupon play their hands earlier today, PayPal announced a program that allows merchants to trade in their old payment processing equipment in exchange for new hardware. The promotional offer features POS systems from ERPLY, Leaf, Leapset and the company’s own PayPal Here. In addition to luring retailers with a fancy new cash register, the outfit is offering to waive credit, debit, check and PayPal processing fees for the remainder of the year. If the aforementioned incentives sound appealing and you’d like to know more, head on over to our source link to check out the program’s all-important fine print.

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    Source: PayPal

    Leaf unveils next-gen LeafPresenter Android POS tablet for taking payments

    Leaf unveils nextgen LeafPresenter Android tablet for taking payments

    You’re at a coffee shop or restaurant and it’s time to pay for your sustenance. After reaching for your wallet, you’re presented with… an Android tablet? This particular scenario is taking place more and more often as small businesses are taking their point-of-sale systems mobile, and Leaf is one of the big contenders battling for market share in this industry. Its signature product, known as the LeafPresenter, is an Android-based tablet with a funky lip on the top right that allows for mag-stripe credit card transactions. While the first-gen version of the device has been out for some time, Leaf is ready to branch out later this summer with a new model that offers more functionality.

    In addition to a newer forked version of Android (Leaf OS), the upcoming LeafPresenter throws in NFC, EMV and gift card support, as well as a 2MP front-facing camera, 1,280×800 display and better battery. Last but not least, the new device also includes support for a Leaf-branded third-party app store geared toward small business usage. While there’s no specific cost to the tablet itself, business owners will need to fork over $50 per month for the opportunity to use it. Check the press release after the break for more.

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    Nissan plans to make Leaf data available to app developers

    Nissan plans to make Leaf data available to app developers

    Those of you familiar with the Nissan Leaf will know about its Carwings system, which lets you check the vehicle’s charge, turn on the AC, rate your driving efficiency against others and even read RSS feeds out loud — all over an always-on cellular data connection. In fact, the RSS functionality raised some privacy concerns when it was discovered that Carwings embeds location and other data in the URL it sends to public servers (something that can thankfully be disabled by the owner). Nissan announced today that it plans to make telemetry data from the Leaf available to third-party developers for a fee — with the owner’s consent, of course. The company already uses telemetry data for vehicle maintenance and products like Carwings, but it hopes to broaden the ecosystem with apps. Examples include smart-grid integration (supplying power to a building for a reduced parking fee) and location-based services (real-time coupons as you drive by restaurants). It’ll be interesting to see if there’s enough interest from both developers and Leaf owners for Nissan to successfully monetize this idea.

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    Source: Nikkei (subscription required)