Nissan Leaf off to a great start

Nissan Europe says the second-generation Leaf is selling much better than expected.  After being available for around a month, an incredible 3,500 Leafs have been sold in Europe. In comparison it took Nissan a year to achieve the same total when it launched the first generation Leaf seven years ago. The launch of the new Leaf, which is called the 2.ZERO and has Nissan's ProPilot semi-autonomous driving technology, starts at NZD$55,000 in Germany with less expensive versions to follow. Globally, Nissan has received more than 9,000 orders for the new Leaf.  The new model has a range of 378 km, up from about 200 km for the Leaf that debuted in 2010. The Leaf's worldwide sales volume is well ahead of Nissan's expectations, the company's senior vice president and head of Japan operations, Asako Hoshino, told reporters at the Tokyo show on Wednesday.