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Can Road Trippers Embrace Nissan's New 100% Electric LEAF?

Another day, another sleek electric car with a futuristic design and eye-popping mileage. This time it's Nissan unveiling their slick new, purely electric LEAF. 100 miles on a single charge and a mere 30 minutes to recharge via a specialized charging station. No hybrid engine so zero emissions. Who wouldn't want to get in on some of this environmental goodness?

For starters, anyone who uses their car for road trips. The Midwest isn't exactly a forest of recharging stations, and even electric cars stop moving when they run out of juice. It takes 16 hours to recharge the LEAF on a standard household plug away from home. It's simply impossible for environmentally-conscious road trippers to go greener than hybrids.

The way we travel was different a few years back, before the recession; people drove their cars inside cities and took airplanes when they wanted to leave. The recession has however caused more and more Americans to choose the road over the friendly skies. The traditional response from pure electric advocates — "how many road trips do people really go on after they get out of college?" — just doesn't work any more.

This unfortunately means there's a tradeoff between the tangible environmental benefits of going totally electric now and the medium-term benefits of having a robust hybrid market.

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