Nissan unveils an electric Leaf Open Car roadster

A Nissan Leaf roadster concept has been created by the brand’s engineers to celebrate the sale of one lakh units in sales in Japan since its introduction in 2010. The car is called the Nissan Leaf Open Car.

The Leaf hatchback's original roof is gone; and less conspicuously, so are the rear doors. There appears to be no folding-roof mechanism and if that is true, it's exclusively a sunny day car. The Leaf Open Car also adopts a four-seat layout with a bizarre, large rear seat – as opposed to the original hatchback's standard five-seat capacity.

In relation to the car's powertrain, there have been no reported changes. It has an AC synchronous electric motor fed by a 40kWh battery pack. The front and rear seem unchanged, too. All of the Leaf's regular features, including Propilot semi-autonomous driving and Propilot Park automatic parking also remain.

In hatchback form, the Leaf provides a 285km range on the WLTP testing standard. Due to aerodynamic drag, though, this number is likely to be diminished for the Leaf Open Car. Since the car industry is slowly shifting to electric power, Nissan decided to reveal the Leaf Open Car at a Tokyo forum attended by Nissan executives and government officials to discuss a “zero-emissions society”.