LEAF may not be first EV to your market

mitsubishi-i-mievIf you live in a Tier 3 Nissan LEAF state and you’re beginning to wonder when you finally might get a LEAF to park in your garage, you might also be wondering when other affordable pure EVs might be arriving in your area and whether they might beat the LEAF to your market.

Below are your other, rather slim, alternative options — unless, of course, you’re aiming to buy a plug-in hybrid EV such as a Chevy Volt, which you can now order nationwide and which GM says will be available nationwide in the U.S. by late 2011:

  • Ford Focus Electric: Available by late 2011 in 20 U.S. cities, including five — Boston, Chicago, Denver, Detroit, and New York — that are Tier 3 Nissan LEAF markets.
  • Mitsubishi iMiEV: First available in January 2012 in the same markets as the LEAF. However, will be available by April 2012 in some LEAF Tier 3 markets. These are: Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island & Vermont.

THINK City
Ford and Mitsubishi appear to be the most solid bets to potentially beat Nissan in getting a pure production EV out to some markets before the LEAF arrives in those places, though BYD, the Chinese automaker has claimed it will have the e6 out in the U.S. sometime in 2011.

A small number of people in the U.S. have already bought the two-seater THINK City, including one we know of from Indiana, which isn’t a rollout state for any other production EVs. However, THINK City recently filed for bankruptcy and it’s unclear what the future holds for the company.

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CODA Automotive has said it will have its EV Sedan out sometime in late 2011, but it’s focusing its rollout on the same markets as Nissan put the LEAF out in first, among them California and Hawaii.

Depending on how long Nissan takes to get the LEAF out in Tier 3 markets – we’ve suggested, this could be as late as 2013, even for folks who reserved a LEAF in April 2010 — a number of other pure EVs might arrive in your area before the LEAF.

These include the Honda Fit EV, scheduled to land in the U.S. sometime in 2012 and the Toyota RAV4 EV, which Toyota says will be available sometime in 2012. Of course, Honda and Toyota could choose to roll out their pure EVs in the same states and markets in which Nissan rolled out the LEAF.

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